Obamacare cost...

[Color Me Badd Fan]

And I thought everything was going so well.

Seriously, lol.

[Color Me Badd Fan]

I saw it pointed out tonight that it's also nice to know that if and when a Republican is elected to the White House in 2016, they can just unilaterally scrap Obamacare.

[calicoug]

Methinks 2014 is beginning to rest heavily upon some Senators' minds:

http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2013/0...-care-mandate/

It has to be a tuffie to deal with the individual mandate. The administration can't delay, or do away with, that one or else insurance premiums will skyrocket even more than it is already apparent to every human save CaliCoug (lalalalalala...I am not listening! somewhere a Californian bureaucrat told me what I want to hear) as the individual mandate is what justifies insurance companies not assessing premiums based upon some component of risk and thus keep rates reasonable for those with pre-existing conditions.

Regardless, perhaps this could be the first step of dismantling employer offered insurance and a move to a rational model that consists of a low level socialized program (sorry po folk I don't think your falsies, teeth restoration or lasik surgeries are a social cost no matter how many think tanks assure me if you were proud of your smile your self-esteem would go through the roof and the economic impact would be limitless) and then those who want better coverage can purchase it themselves. Then again maybe not.

Your post suggests your are confusing the mandate with the employer coverage provision. Those are two totally separate provisions of the law. Delaying implementation of the employer provision has no impact on the mandate. In fact, as you note, it could be a good first step to divorcing health care from employment which I would strongly favor. Of course, that would require Republicans to want to do something constructive within the framework or the law and nobody thinks they have any interest in doing that.

[calicoug]

I saw it pointed out tonight that it's also nice to know that if and when a Republican is elected to the White House in 2016, they can just unilaterally scrap Obamacare.

Whoever said that doesn't understand the basics of the legislative process. A Republican can alter regulations under a law, but they absolutely can't "unilaterally scrap Obamacare." Does nobody take basic civics classes anymore?

[Color Me Badd Fan]

Your post suggests your are confusing the mandate with the employer coverage provision. Those are two totally separate provisions of the law. Delaying implementation of the employer provision has no impact on the mandate. In fact, as you note, it could be a good first step to divorcing health care from employment which I would strongly favor. Of course, that would require Republicans to want to do something constructive within the framework or the law and nobody thinks they have any interest in doing that.

Do you honestly think Goat, or all people, doesn't know the difference between the individual mandate and the employer coverage provision? Big reading comprehension fail.

Is this sentence really that hard to understand? --

It has to be a tuffie to deal with the individual mandate. The administration can't delay, or do away with, that one or else insurance premiums will skyrocket

[Dr. Heinz Doofenshmirtz]

Whoever said that doesn't understand the basics of the legislative process. A Republican can alter regulations under a law, but they absolutely can't "unilaterally scrap Obamacare." Does nobody take basic civics classes anymore?

If a Republican administration can do indefinitely what the Obama administration just did for 2014, then functionally, it can (at least for 4 or 8 years). And I don't see any reason why it couldn't.

[Goatnapper'96]

If a Republican administration can do indefinitely what the Obama administration just did for 2014, then functionally, it can (at least for 4 or 8 years). And I don't see any reason why it couldn't.

I am not sure if this is correct. What the Administration can do is to choose to not enforce rules, especially those that are enforced via a tax penalty such as the employer and individual mandates, but other measures of the law such as insurance providers being legally prevented from assessing insurance based upon a risk component (i.e. refusing or charging more for those with pre-existing conditions and thus statistically more likely to use health care) as well as kids being covered by their parents insurance until they are 26 will stay. As I tried to point out the individual mandate is inextricably linked to the providers having to provide insurance to everyone and a decision to not enforce the individual mandate would unravel health care in the US even more than it is presently unraveled. I don't think an administration could unilaterally alter the part of the law that mandates all providers cover all. But I could be wrong.

[calicoug]

I am not sure if this is correct. What the Administration can do is to choose to not enforce rules, especially those that are enforced via a tax penalty such as the employer and individual mandates, but other measures of the law such as insurance providers being legally prevented from assessing insurance based upon a risk component (i.e. refusing or charging more for those with pre-existing conditions and thus statistically more likely to use health care) as well as kids being covered by their parents insurance until they are 26 will stay. As I tried to point out the individual mandate is inextricably linked to the providers having to provide insurance to everyone and a decision to not enforce the individual mandate would unravel health care in the US even more than it is presently unraveled. I don't think an administration could unilaterally alter the part of the law that mandates all providers cover all. But I could be wrong.

You aren't wrong. They could interpret the statute more strictly and in areas where they have rulemaking latitude they could make rules that have little real effect, but that is a far cry from saying they could completely do away with the law with the flick of the president's pen. The law is the law and the administration has to work within its confines.

This is a fundamental disconnect from reality that many Republicans like CMBF have. They have become convinced one presidential election will eliminate Obamacare. That's fantasy. It's a fantasy Republicans are pushing to drive votes and fundraising, but one has to wonder what they will do if they win and can't then deliver the only real policy provision they have articulated for a couple years.

Luckily, they appear to be driving themselves straight towards another loss in 2016- assuming Hillary runs.

[All-American]

Part-Time Jobs Surge To All Time High; Full-Time Jobs Plunge By 240,000

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-0...-plunge-240000

The ultimate result: a lost decade.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-0...jobs-data.html

[calicoug]

Part-Time Jobs Surge To All Time High; Full-Time Jobs Plunge By 240,000

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-0...-plunge-240000

The ultimate result: a lost decade.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-0...jobs-data.html

The long term effects will last much loget than that. We are making many of the same mistakes as Japan during its lost decade, including pulling back on spending too quickly.

[Color Me Badd Fan]

The long term effects will last much loget than that. We are making many of the same mistakes as Japan during its lost decade, including pulling back on spending too quickly.

So part time jobs are expanding rapidly as percentage of the overall jobs in this country and full time jobs are lagging and both the expansion of part-time jobs and the lag in full time jobs is because we're not torching money at the same clip as we were in 2009? "You know Bob, we just aren't swimming in the cash like we were in 2009, that federal spigot went dry. I know in this kind of situation, we should just lay people off. But I think I've figured out another solution. Let's cut everyone's hours from 40 down to 30 and for every three employees, let's hire another guy to work another 30."

I think you need to follow Occam's Razor on this and look for a more simple and direct explanation. Maybe there's something out there that provides a direct incentive to employers to both cut current employees hours and to predominantly hire part time workers to fill in the hours gaps. Chances are if you look for what that is, you'll find it, I promise.

[Uncle Ted]

So is this shift to part-time jobs because of Obamacare really the case?

Restaurant Shift: Sorry, Just Part-Time

Ken Adams has been turning to more part-time workers at his 10 Subway sandwich shops in Michigan to avoid possibly incurring higher health-care costs under the new federal insurance law.


He added approximately 25 part-time workers in May and June as he reduced some employees' hours and replaced other workers who left. The move showed how efforts by some restaurant owners and other businesses to remake their workforces because of the Affordable Care Act may be turning the country's labor market into a more part-time workforce.

Restaurants and bars have been adding an average of 50,000 jobs monthly since April—about double the rate from 2012. In June, they added a seasonally adjusted 51,700 jobs, up from May's 47,900 tally, but below April's 51,800. Overall, leisure-and-hospitality establishments hired more workers than any other industry in June, accounting for 75,000 of the 195,000 jobs added last month, according to the most recent Labor Department report, although economists cautioned against reading too much into one month's preliminary figures.


Views differ on exactly what is driving the hospitality industry's pickup. Other factors likely also were behind it, including the addition of new restaurants as well as a move to staff up hiring after scaling back during the downturn, according to some restaurant owners and industry experts. But a number of restaurants and other low-wage employers say they are increasing their staffs by hiring more part-time workers to reduce reliance on full-timers before the health-care law takes effect.


"I'd be surprised if the Affordable Care Act didn't have something to do with" the pickup in part-time hiring, said Paul Dales, senior U.S. economist at Capital Economics. "Companies don't want to pay for health care unnecessarily if they can avoid it, so they'll try to avoid it." However, he said "the effects will be harder to discern in the data."

For the entire U.S. workforce, employers have added far more part-time employees in 2013—averaging 93,000 a month, seasonally adjusted—than full-time workers, which have averaged 22,000. Last year the reverse was true, with employers adding 31,000 part-time workers monthly, compared with 171,000 full-time ones.


The Affordable Care Act requires employers with 50 or more full-time equivalent workers to offer affordable insurance to employees working 30 or more hours a week or face fines. Some companies have said the requirement could increase their costs significantly, although others have played down the potential hit.

[...]

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...653718606.html

[Blueintheface]

So is this shift to part-time jobs because of Obamacare really the case?



http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...653718606.html

I remember reading in this very thread of this eventuality. I was hoping and changing it wouldn't happen.

[Pelado]

Shift to sub-30 hour per week jobs not limited to the private sector:

We know that evil, horrible private businesses are cutting workers' hours to bring them under the 30-hour full-time cut-off that invokes the Affordable Care Act's mandate that employers offer health insurance or pay a fine. But the Washington Post offers evidence that government employers are doing the same. In fact, government agencies may be among the main hour slashers. "[T]he numbers are higher for the retail and hospitality industries, as well as for government, because those employers often rely on a large number of part-timers but do not already offer them benefits..."

Writes Sandhya Somashekhar at the Washington Post:

For Kevin Pace, the president’s health-care law could have meant better health insurance. Instead, it produced a pay cut.

Like many of his colleagues, the adjunct music professor at Northern Virginia Community College had managed to assemble a hefty courseload, despite his official status as a part-time employee. But his employer, the state, slashed his hours this spring to avoid a Jan. 1 requirement that all full-time workers be offered health insurance. The law defines “full time” as 30 hours a week or more.

Why would the state of Virginia slash employee hours?

Virginia’s situation provides a good lens on why. The state has more than 37,000 part-time, hourly wage employees, with as many as 10,000 working more than 30 hours a week. Offering coverage to those workers, who include nurses, park rangers and adjunct professors, would have been prohibitively expensive, state officials said, costing as much as $110 million.

http://reason.com/blog/2013/07/23/go...-slash-workers

[il Padrino Ute]

Apparently, Howard Dean likes most of Obamacare, but now agrees with Sarah Palin about death panels.