This headline and short take really says it all: Obama's top ‘fat cat’ strays — JP Morgan honcho Jamie Dimon, once a “fat cat” ally of President Obama, seems to have strayed to Republican contender Mitt Romney. — Dimon, a lifelong Democrat who was rumored to be on Obama's short list for treasury secretary before he settled on Tim Geithner. . . . . . .
I have been predicting an all out rebellion to Obama's policies from within the established business community, since the beginning of 2010. A Bloomberg survey conducted in late 2009, found that business and Wall Street had decided that Obama was "anti-business" by the tune of 77%. Nothing has changed since that survey to reverse that collective opinion. If you do not "buy into" this theory, you do not understand why business and Wall Street is sitting on as much as 3 trillion dollars in investment capital. Of course, if this theory is your understanding, as well, then you see clearly what is happening.
I am 66 and, to my knowledge, I have never seen an election cycle so influenced by Big Business. While [perhaps] half of the business community is "progressive" in its ideology, one hundred percent of the business community is all about . . . . . . . . . . making money. Understand that it is not that Big Business cannot make their profit margins, under an Obama Regime. Rather, it is that they cannot plan out a business strategy until the Obama rash of laws are fully written. How do you plot a strategy when you do not know what the rules will be?
Understand that ObamaCare could add as much as $2,000 PER EMPLOYEE, after the bill is fully written in 2014 . . . . . emphasis on "after the bill is fully written . . . ." That 2,700 paged bill rammed through congress in defiance of the wishes of the American people? Well, that was only the "skeleton" upon which hangs the laws, formulas and regulations that make up this bill. Some say that the end game to this process will produce more than 100,000 pages of expanded regulations. On a slightly smaller scale, the 2,000 page Dodd/Frank bill has precisely the problematic future. Thousands and thousands of dollar of added annual cost is about to added to American businesses and no one knows how that will actually work.
In response, the business community is saying, "We will just wait until you clowns in Washington get the bill completed."
Understand this: what is happening is not about politics so much as it is about planning for the future. Obama and his academic buds made it impossible for Big Business to "proceed." It is literally that simple. Apparently "simple" and "genius" do not work well together. Who knew ?
I'm curious to see your sources and/or evidence of the possible $2,000 per employee added cost due to Obama's health care bill.
ReplyDeleteI'm also interested in the alternatives for reforming health care systems in the US. From what I have read all Republicans agree that health care reform should take place at the state level and that we should open up health insurance companies to sell insurance across state lines in order to spur competition and lower prices.
My problem with this is that you can easily see a parallel with credit card companies here where all CC companies have moved to the states with the least regulation. If we opened health insurance up like this states would start a competition to bottom out regulations to lure business to their states and in my opinion the health care industry already has too much political and financial power over health care.
For those who distrust government to manage healthcare I have to ask if they really trust a corporation? Worried about government death panels? Well, Cigna, Allstate, Geico, Liberty Mutual and every other health insurance company has been running them for years. Health insurance companies care about stockholders. Your individual health is at the bottom of their priority list.
While Dodd/Frank may add to the cost of doing business, does the cost outweigh the benefit? Should we allow the financial shell games to go unregulated? Isn't Dodd/Frank's purpose to protect consumers from the kind of financial shenanigans that put the world in the economic situation we are in.
Sorry if I am totally off topic. I think I may have gone off in the wrong direction and not completely related it to what this post is actually about.
I will reply sometime this evening. Good questions. You do know that you can win an argument by simply asking the right question. Anyway. I pride myself in making statements that are factual or, at least, have a substantive requisite line of reasoning.
ReplyDeleteWell, I did say "this evening" but I was hoping that it would be a bit earlier.
ReplyDeleteThe cheapest an employer will have it, beginning in 2014, under ObamaCare, is to pay a $2000 "fine" for not fully funding a health care program. The fine is less than the cost of a fully funded plan, so, of course, the employer will take the fine.
Understand that the cost factor when talking about this aspect, the employer's "contribution," is "per year" as in "$2,000 per year.
Also, please note that I wrote, " . . . could add as much as $2,000 PER EMPLOYEE, after the bill is fully written in 2014 . . .
Supporting articles:
http://bignewsnow.com/the-obamacare-coverage-disincentive85575/
http://truecostblog.com/tag/obamacare/
http://www.nationalreview.com/critical-condition/270214/losing-your-coverage-under-obamacare-grace-marie-turner
http://blogs.dailymail.com/donsurber/archives/11653
Wait a second. Your not saying that its an added cost. Your actually saying its will be cheaper for employers to have employees than it was before Obamacare. If it costs $2000 not to cover employees Its not even close to the amount that it would cost for them TO COVER employees. I'm not getting your logic. This means its CHEAPER to have an employee.
ReplyDeleteSo do we actually think that employers will opt out and not give employees health care? Will the job market be bad enough that people will take jobs where they don't receive health insurance as part of their compensation? Will employers pay people more to take jobs without health care?
Yes to that last question. It will be cheaper for the employer to opt out and pay the $2000 to $3000 fine than to offer a health plan. Estimates have 1/3 to 1/2 of all business choosing to send their employees to a central insurance reserve.
ReplyDeleteUnderstand that employees pay a fine, as well. But it will be cheaper to pay the fine than carry insurance. And because insurance companies are not allowed to refuse insurance. the "uninsured" can continue to go uninsured, pay the annual fine right up to the time they seriously ill, then they can opt into the government plan and get their health bills paid for. Brilliant, wouldn't you say? Geeeeeeeesh
You wanted to know where I came up with $2000 in higher costs and I gave you the figure for the fine, paid by the employer, if he chose to not share the cost of the individual mandate. The fine is actually 2000 to 3000 depending on several factors.
ReplyDeleteIs this a savings for the employee over his cost sharing? You are making the point that it is. I am telling you that the INITIAL cost is fixed for the employer who refuses to share health costs with his employees. No one knows what the "fines' will be three, four, five years down the road. The government cannot afford to share cost with every employee in the nation. That is simply impossible.
The "cheaper" initial fines will drive about 30% of the work force into the health exchanges. To keep that percentage from rising to 50% or higher, within three or four years, the program will have no choice but to drastically increase these fines and that is the information we do not have in hand. One of the companies I represent, pays $320 a month or $3,840 annually per employee. If the fines increase at a greater rate than our share of the cost, it will not take much before the employer is actually paying more in fines than otherwise.
The decreased number of insurance customers, 30% fewer folks, will drastically increase the premium costs to the remainder of the population. Again, this is a shared cost to 60% of all businesses and no one knows what that cost will be . We do know that healthcare premiums increased 131% over the past decade ending with 2008. Most believe that the rate of increase will be 166% for the next decade bringing individual costs to $18,000 to $24,000 annually.
ObamaCare is doing nothing to bring costs down, and no one in government knows the true cost because no one knows how many will be insured. "The more the merry" does not work, here.
Is this helping?
By the way,stripmallpaul, I would appreciate your answer to this: why is the initial set of fines to employers cheaper than their annual per capita insurance-shared cost?
ReplyDeleteUnderstand, also, that most private sector plans, today, are considered "Cadillac" plans and are deserving of a heavy tax, according to Obama, This "Cadillac" tax, embedded in ObamaCare, increases monthly premiums 40%.
Understand that the employer must hare this additional cost or move his people into the "exchange." This is another hidden cost not yet known.
Anyway, when you combine both circumstances, it appears to me that you (the Federal Government) want to drive the "private care " nation into government care and away from private care. I am telling you, THIS IS THE PLAN. He could not get "the public option" crammed through congress, so he decided to write a bill that forces the same circumstance.
Understand that with this arrangement, the Feds have two sources of income off this single program. They herd the population into federal care and collect those premiums. Secondly, everyone in the government "exchanges" has a counter-part business that pays a per-capita fine that will surely increase over the years, beginning in 2014. ObamaCare is nothing but a money/power grab. There no, none, nee, non, nein, neit - no other way to explain the heavy tax on private sector prices and the cheaper fines. Is there another explanation?