Obamacare: Something Wicked This Way Comes - The American Spectator | USA News and Politics
Obamacare: Something Wicked This Way Comes
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A tally compiled by FreedomWorks reveals that Obamacare means fewer jobs and fewer hours for the American workforce. Even though full implementation has been delayed until 2015, Obamacare is already incentivizing the creation of low-paid part-time jobs at the expense of full-time jobs. Gallup reported a surge in the part-time workforce ahead of the Obamacare mid-year deadline in April. 

Moreover, Obamacare appears to be entrenching this predominately part-time workforce. Subway and CKE Restaurants (owner of Carl’s Jr. and Hardee’s) have begun hiring part time workers to replace full-time employees in order to offset the higher costs of coverage. 

Businesses are taking the part-time path of least resistance to offset the unaffordable cost of Obamacare. Forever 21, Kroger, Regal Entertainment Group, and Wendy’s are limiting their part-time workers to 19.5-28 hours a week to dodge the greedy tendrils of the Affordable Care Act, which requires health insurance be provided for employees who work more than 30 hours.

Even the Affordable Care Act Call Center has restricted health care access to its employees.  Half of the jobs are part-time with no health benefits.

Wegmans Grocery Store no longer offers health care to their part-time workers. This news comes after UPS and the University of Virginia announced that they will no longer cover spouses in employee health care plans.

The decline in NIH funding, the medical device tax, cuts to Medicare and Medicaid reimbursements, and the administrative costs of understanding and complying with federal regulations and mandates has resulted in at least 8,900 jobs lost since the implementation of Obamacare. The list of affected companies is endless—Wellmark Blue Cross/Blue Shield, St. Jude Medical, Medtornic, Zimmer, Abbott Laboratories, Stryker, and Boston Scientific.

None of these numbers take into account the longer-term effect that Obamacare costs will have on future job creation.

Tim Worstall, a contributor for Forbes, recounted the story of Warren Meyer, a business owner who also works at Forbes:

“Here is what I am doing for the rest of the year — working with every manager in my company so that as of January 1, 2013, none of our employees are working more than 28 hours a week. I think most readers know the reason — we have got to get our company under 50 full time employees or else I am facing a bill from Obamacare in 2014 that will be several times larger than my annual profit. I love my workers. They make me a success. But most of my competitors are small businesses that are exempt from the Obamacare hammer. To compete, I must make sure my company is exempt as well. This means that our 400+ full time employees will have to be less than 50 in 2013, so that when the Feds look at me at the start of 2014, I am exempt. We will have more employees working fewer hours, with more training costs, but the Obamacare bill looks like about $800,000 a year for us, at least, and I am pretty sure the cost of more training will be less than that.” 

With such perverse economic incentives, we cannot allow Obamacare to continue to consume our jobs and beleaguer our businesses. Something wicked this way comes, and the only way to halt it is a successful GOP-led campaign to defund it.

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