Ross Douthat chimes in with an assist from Tyler Cowen: http://douthat.blogs.nytimes.com/20...nion&pgtype=Blogs®ion=Body&_r=0#more-19459
Here's the money quote: If everyone working less is a good thing, then 2% of 2080 hours (52 weeks x 40 hours/week) comes to a shade over 40, or a week's vacation. Unfortunately, I don't know how anyone can expect that it actually would work like that. Some people will get 0% of their time cut and others 100%, and a range of people in between those extremes. People who are nearer to the 100% cut (or even 25%) are not going to be very happy. Another point to take from the CBO report is: Spin away.
This is spin gone all wrong. Ever heard of "job lock"? Its when people stay in dead end jobs just for the insurance because they had no options, or pre-existing conditions, etc. With Obamacare, people can actually leave, start businesses, etc. Hence fewer "jobs". But more small businesses.
No, actually many could not, because they could not get insurance before. BusinessDictionary.com: "Job Lock: The inability of an employee to voluntarily terminate employment with a particular company because he or she would lose current health care benefits. This becomes an issue for individuals that have pre-existing health conditions that may not be covered under the new employer's health care coverage. This situation is possible because most insurance companies have a pre-existing health care clause that prevents them from being liable for any condition that the employee had before requesting coverage. Read more: http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/job-lock.html#ixzz2sc9XQk8m"
And we need to remake the entire healthcare systems for this tiny sliver of people who have a harder time following their dreams?
Geez, I am so pleased to have lost the coverage provided by my former employer so these people now have a fix for the fix they were in. err but I still don't know why they had to lay a tax on my former employer (and many others) because they were providing my wife and I with health care coverage. It couldn't have been to raise revenue, because it didn't and could hardly be expect to do so.
Another media lie, this one clearly on purpose. It seems the media dislikes Obamacare and Russia. http://blog.erratasec.com/2014/02/that-nbc-story-100-fraudulent.html
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2014/02/07/obamas_work_trap_121494.html Free-market capitalism should make us all equal at the starting line, and that should lead to better, though unequal, outcomes at the finish line. The point here is opportunity, freedom and economic dynamism. More millionaires create healthier economies with more jobs, stronger families and better lives than our parents and grandparents had. But now comes a new CBO study of Obamacare, which exposes a perverse incentive system that will cause the equivalent loss of 2.5 million jobs over the next decade as people work less, not more. In the Obama scheme, an industrious person climbing the ladder of opportunity is penalized heavily for his or her success. Health care subsidies are reduced as a result of her higher income, while marginal tax rates go up as she shifts into a higher tax bracket. So she loses the government benefit and her effective federal tax climbs higher. There is no ladder of opportunity here. It's really a work trap that becomes a poverty trap. It's similar to the other traps found in welfare, food stamps, unemployment compensation and the marriage penalty. Democrats defend this work trap as providing more leisure time. But they forget to tell you that the perverse health care incentives that lead to less work also lead to less income, less wealth, less opportunity and less economic freedom to prosper.
Only certain people are penalized. Others are rewarded and exempted from these kinds of laws. "All Animals Are Equal...But Some Are More Equal Than Others"
There's an actual subsidy cliff. If you make $10,999 (say) and get a $1 raise to $11,000, you lose all the subsidy and end up paying the $20K for your insurance. This encourages people to not excel, to stay in poverty, and removes a bunch of rungs on the ladder of opportunity. http://www.cnbc.com/id/100921864 Working more could ultimately mean thousands of dollars less for you under a quirk in the new health-care law going into effect this fall. This could prompt some people to cut back on their hours to avoid losing money. "Working more can actually leave you worse off," the price-comparison site ValuePenguin.com notes in a new analysis. "It's sort of an absurd scenario," said Jonathan Wu, ValuePenguin.com's co-founder. "It's something for people to be aware of." In that scenario, an individual or family whose annual income surpasses maximums set by the federal government—if only by $1—will totally lose subsidies available to buy health insurance under the Affordable Care Act. The loss of those subsidies in some cases will mean that people potentially would have been better off financially if they had worked less during the year, Wu said. And they then would have to work significantly more to make up for the lost subsidy. "I think they'd be surprised to see how drastic it is," said Wu. "I'd be kind of shocked to see if I make $100 less (in total income each year), I get all these benefits, but if I make $100 more, I get nothing." "You basically don't want to fall in that hole," said Wu, adding that he believed contractors and others with more control over their incomes would be apt to adjust their hours worked to avoid the subsidy cliff. He also said that because of lower insurance premiums often offered younger people, the effect will more likely be seen by older people. But "you will see it across all age groups" in the seven states including New York and Vermont where insurance premiums are either barred from being affected by age, or restricted from being dramatically affected, he said. Under the ACA, federal subsidies in the form of tax credits to buy insurance on new state health insurance exchanges will be available to millions of people who can start enrolling on those exchanges Oct. 1. The subsidies are available to people or families whose incomes total 400 percent above the federal poverty level or less, and are designed to cap their insurance premiums at 9.5 percent of their total income.
I have several friends who lost their health care due to the ACA. Their new health care plans are much more expensive and have much higher deductibles than their old plans. They not only pay higher premiums, but they have way more out of pocket before the insurance does them any good. These are folks in their 50s, not the young crowd that's supposed to live at home in their parents' basement and also support the 50+ crowd's lower premiums (what lower premiums?). What lower premiums? I have another friend who's 50+ and who made $1M in the stock market last year. He had little reportable income so he pays dirt cheap price for his insurance because he qualifies for full subsidies. What a joke.
