How to Protect Yourself From Obamacare

[guido911]

Target nixing insurance coverage for part-timers?

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-01-21/target-to-drop-health-insurance-for-part-time-workers.html#disqus_thread

[guido911]

Screw them. All that is important is that a very small percentage of folks are happy.

http://splashurl.com/kobgq38

[Gaspar]

On today's Google Hangout with President Obama a Fry cook asks Obama about getting cut back to part time b/c of Obamacare, Obama tells him Congress needs to pass a minimum wage increase. 

Wish I could find a capture of the video.  I'm sure some of the networks will pick it up.

[guido911]

On today's Google Hangout with President Obama a Fry cook asks Obama about getting cut back to part time b/c of Obamacare, Obama tells him Congress needs to pass a minimum wage increase. 

Wish I could find a capture of the video.  I'm sure some of the networks will pick it up.

Here's the video. Go to 14:00 min. mark. This seemed to be a question about minimum wage that had a lesser Obamacare component.

[guido911]

Here is what is considered a more callous view of government responsibility about the failed Obamacare roll out--from the person that said we had to vote for it before we could know what was in it (or something). Go to 3:00ish for the "explanation":

http://splashurl.com/n4v38w7

[Conan71]

The administration has polished this turd so much now that it's a glossy brown.  I don't know how Jay Carney stands up straight with all the spinning he does.

WASHINGTON — Several million American workers will cut back their hours on the job or leave the nation's workforce entirely because of President Barack Obama's health-care overhaul, congressional analysts said Tuesday, adding fresh fuel to the political fight over "Obamacare."

The workforce changes would mean nationwide losses equal to 2.3 million full-time jobs by 2021, in large part because people would opt to keep their income low to stay eligible for federal health-care subsidies or Medicaid, the Congressional Budget Office said. It had estimated previously that the law would lead to 800,000 fewer jobs by that year.

Republican lawmakers seized on the report as major new evidence of what they consider the failures of Obama's overhaul, the huge change in U.S. health coverage that they're trying to overturn and planning to use as a main argument against Democrats in November's midterm elections.

It's the latest indication that "the president's health-care law is destroying full-time jobs," said Republican Rep. John Kline of Minnesota, chairman of the House Education and the Workforce Committee.

But the White House said the possible reduction would be due to voluntary steps by workers rather than businesses cutting jobs — people having the freedom to retire early or spend more time as stay-at-home parents because they no longer had to depend only on their employers for health insurance.
The law means people "will be empowered to make choices about their own lives and livelihoods," said White House Press Secretary Jay Carney.

CBO Director Douglas Elmendorf said the top reasons people would reduce work would be to qualify for subsidized coverage and an expanded Medicaid program but that lower wages — because of penalties on employers who don't provide coverage and looming taxes on generous health-care plans — would also be a factor.

The agency also reduced its estimate of the number of uninsured people who will get coverage through the health-care law. The budget experts now say 1 million more people will be uninsured this year than had been expected, partly because of the website problems that prevented people from signing up last fall.

However, it wasn't all bad news for the Obama administration. The CBO's wide-ranging report predicted that the federal budget deficit will fall to $514 billion this year, down from last year's $680 billion and the lowest by far since Obama took office five years ago.

The new estimates also say that the health-care law will, in the short run, benefit the economy by boosting demand for goods and services because the lower-income people it helps will have more purchasing power. The report noted that the 2014 premiums that people pay for exchange coverage are coming in about 15 percent lower than projected, and the health-care law, on balance, still is expected to reduce the federal deficit.

However, the budget experts see the long-term federal deficit picture worsening by about $100 billion a year through the end of the decade because of slower growth in the economy than they had previously predicted.

As for health-care signups, the website woes have largely been cleared up, but the nonpartisan congressional analysts estimated that about 1 million fewer people will enroll through the new insurance exchanges than had been expected this year, for a total of 6 million.

Enrollment is predicted to pick up, topping 20 million in 2016. The exchanges, or online marketplaces, offer subsidized private coverage and cater mainly to middle-class people who don't have health-care on the job.

The Congressional Budget Office also revised its Medicaid enrollment projection downward by about 1 million, for a new total of 8 million signups in 2014. About half the states have accepted the health law's Medicaid expansion.

What about those people whose decisions about work might be affected by the new law?

Lower-wage workers are more likely to reduce their hours or quit their jobs because of Obamacare incentives, the report said.

Although some employers will choose not to hire additional workers, or will reduce hours, the budget office said that does not appear to be the main factor.

"The estimated reduction stems almost entirely from a net decline in the amount of labor that workers choose to supply, rather than from a net drop in businesses' demand for labor," the report said.

The health-care analysis is layered with complexity. The job losses are measured in "full-time-equivalent workers," which means more people are actually affected than, say, the 2 million full-time-equivalent jobs lost in 2017. It could take several part-time workers or people deciding to reduce their hours to produce the wage loss of one full-time equivalent.

The report also contains an important caveat, that the estimate of job losses is "subject to substantial uncertainty" and could be larger or smaller than predicted. There now are more than 130 million jobs in the economy.

http://www.tulsaworld.com/homepagelatest/congressional-budget-office-predicts-health-law-will-spur-workers-to/article_cee3c954-8e11-11e3-b07c-0017a43b2370.html

[Gaspar]

Unemployment offers an excellent opportunity to spend more time with family. The Obama administration is very focused on family.

[Conan71]

DC has gone into full spin mode now.  Let's see, up to 2.5 million people may choose not to participate in the workforce because the ACA creates disincentives for people to work which decreases overall productivity.  But in no way does extending jobless benefits create a disincentive for people to find work.  Assuming these are low-level wage jobs, where's the incentive for others to move into the workforce in place of those leaving because of the disincentives that will supposedly make them leave the workforce?

I'm curious if Elmendorf got some talking points emailed to him by the White House.

As noted here yesterday, Republicans went mad with glee at the new Congressional Budget Office report on deficits and the Affordable Care Act, with multiple GOP officials claiming it showed the law will kill over two million jobs. That was false.

Under questioning today before the House Budget Committee from Dem Rep. Chris Van Hollen, CBO director Douglas Elmendorf confirmed that in reality, his report suggests Obamacare will reduce unemployment:

The CBO report found that Obamacare — through subsidizing health coverage – would reduce the amount of hours workers choose to work, to the equivalent of 2.5 million full-time workers over 10 years. This was widely spun by Republicans as a loss of 2.5 million jobs.

To counter this, Van Hollen cited the report's findings on Obamacare's impact on labor demand, rather than supply. On page 124, the report estimates that the ACA will "boost overall demand for goods and services over the next few years because the people who will benefit from the expansion of Medicaid and from access to the exchange subsidies are predominantly in lower-income households and thus are likely to spend a considerable fraction of their additional resources on goods and services." This, the report says, "will in turn boost demand for labor over the next few years."

"When you boost demand for labor in this kind of economy, you actually reduce the unemployment rate, because those people who are looking for work can find more work, right?" Van Hollen asked Elmendorf.

"Yes, that's right," Elmendorf said.

Elmendorf added that the factor Van Hollen had identified was something CBO thinks "spurs employment and would reduce unemployment over the next few years."

So there it is: The CBO report found the opposite of what some foes of the law claimed.

Now, it's true that elsewhere in his testimony — when questioned by Paul Ryan — Elmendorf confirmed that the subsidies from Obamacare would reduce the incentive to work, and that this would reduce economic growth. But as Brian Beutler explains well, for many people this incentive to work is not even necessarily a good thing, because it flows from "job lock," i.e., they are tied to their jobs in order to have health care.

As Jonathan Cohn points out, conservatives might have a principled policy disagreement with that point, arguing that some people will have bad reasons for working less (they don't want to work more), but even if they do, a similar impact is felt from any policy offering financial assistance that's conditioned on income level — even conservative health reform ideas.

Wherever you come down on that debate, conservatives making that case are at least remaining within the parameters of what the CBO report actually said. The claim by GOP officials that Obamacare will snuff out over two million jobs does not fall within the parameters of what the CBO report actually said.

What this really comes down to is that Republicans mischaracterized the report's findings because they don't want to let go of their "Obamacare is a job killer" talking point. After all, it's much harder politically to argue that helping poor people get health coverage is a bad idea because it reduces their incentive to work than it is to argue that Big Bad Government Regulations (in the form of unpopular Obamacare) are killing millions of jobs, driving up unemployment, and strangling the recovery.

But the CBO report just doesn't support that latter claim, and the director of the CBO himself has now confirmed it.

[Gaspar]

DC has gone into full spin mode now.  Let’s see, up to 2.5 million people may choose not to participate in the workforce because the ACA creates disincentives for people to work which decreases overall productivity.  But in no way does extending jobless benefits create a disincentive for people to find work.  Assuming these are low-level wage jobs, where’s the incentive for others to move into the workforce in place of those leaving because of the disincentives that will supposedly make them leave the workforce?

I’m curious if Elmendorf got some talking points emailed to him by the White House.

Sometimes the only way to overcome failure is to redefine it.

[Gaspar]

AOL/Huffington Post announces cuts to employees retirement plans due to Obamacare. WHAT?

[Gaspar]

http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/4738649?&ir=Politics&ncid=tweetlnkushpmg00000016

[Conan71]

What's that? Stiffing employees for the sake of profit???

[Cats Cats Cats]

AOL made more money in one day last quarter than their change in health care costs this year. 

[Gaspar]

You mean they feel that healthcare is the obligation of their employees rather than their investors?

Lightbulbs coming on yet?

[Cats Cats Cats]

You mean they feel that healthcare is the obligation of their employees rather than their investors?

Lightbulbs coming on yet?

Yeah, good thing there is something in place when they decide that they don't need to offer healthcare in order to get employees.