More Small Businesses able to offer healthcare | Hacker News Reader

More Small Businesses able to offer healthcare

blogs.forbes.com

17 pointstrustfundbaby11 comments

I'm not sure that article convinces me yet. Here is the experience of my employer, which offered 3 different healthcare plans for employees. Healthcare plan costs skyrocketed this year, to the tune of 30%-50% (not necessarily due to the healthcare bill, but a damaging hit nonetheless). As a result, the company was forced to eliminate the two most expensive plans that it did offer and consolidate down to the lowest cost one. In turn, many people were forced onto a plan they had never been on before.

He surveyed a couple different health insurance providers, but not a complete sampling by any means. Those providers he surveyed could very well have been the ones offering the cheaper plans. So I have to ask the question, could we be seeing a consolidation in the market rather than just an explosion of coverage?

The article seems to focus more on small businesses (fewer than 50 employees) who have not historically offered health care plans but are now starting to offer them because of the tax cut in the new law. The numbers appear to support the conclusion that at least this part of the law is working.

For those of us who offered healthcare to all employees prior to these "reforms", these new "incentives" offer me nothing but additional expenses and tax burdens.

Don't get me started on crow-baring the "1099 everyone" BS into it. I know its been discussed at length around here. Le sigh.

If you're already providing coverage, what are the additional expenses and burdens (aside from W2 reporting)?

I'm assuming W-2 reporting will be the easiest part, though it will be a pain.

The 1099 thing is a big hidden expense. My businesses are run as lean as they possibly can be so I'll have to hire someone to go and find all the tax ID's for all my vendors. Then I have to pay my accountant to generate all of them for me. I'd imagine cost of staying on top of this will be in the thousands / year.

The other thing is the Medicare tax. In a couple years I'll be paying an additional 3.8% to Medicare taxes on each dollar I make over $250k. This feels like a slap in the face given I'm already paying tons of moola for health care costs, which are now skyrocketing because of these "reforms." In general, those who are most likely to be affected by this new tax are the ones that are already paying (or will be forced to start paying) for others' health insurance.

Le sigh x2.

Please don't call it "Obamacare".

He just copied the title from the article. He didn't "call" it that (i.e., editorialize).

And before anyone starts on how this is irrelevant political tripe, read the 2nd & 3rd words of the title again.

> Please don't call it "Obamacare".

I agree it's stupid, but let me ask you since I've been wondering - what's the difference between using "Obamacare" derisively vs. "Bush tax cuts" derisively?

It seems to me that both are trying to paint a specific set of legislation as solely due to the president's prerogative. IE, I don't see people upset at the term Obamacare try to get people to call the tax cuts "the '01/'03 tax cuts" which is much less politically loaded and much less emotional...

(I do think both are stupid, and ignores the culpability of Congress in decisionmaking)

I really hope this doesn't turn into a political battle thread.

However, "Bush tax cuts" is an accurate term for the tax cuts provided by the Bush administration. It has no negative or positive (besides "tax cuts") meaning inherent in its wordings alone. "Obamacare" is a dumbed down slang for "Obama health reform", mostly because Obama, nor his administration, is providing care. It inherently does not describe what it represents, reform* not care.

When using either term derisively, then that is a whole separate ballgame. I will admit though that "Bush tax cuts" has turned into a phrase that one may use to speak ill about president Bush, but then the anger still should be directed towards that session of congress, not Bush himself.

I also agree that both are stupid.

* although I personally like the healthcare reform bill, one should always remember that just like evolution, the definition of reform does not suggest that the change it is describing has moved in a positive direction. There is no de-reform or devolution. Change is change, how positive or negative it is can only be valued by each individual separately.

Calling something the "Bush tax cuts" is a still-english shortening of a long bill name: "Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2003" Wikipedia even mentions that this is the commonly used name. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jobs_and_Growth_Tax_Relief_Reco...

Obamacare is a non-english dog-whistle slur. If you look around online, you will see that pretty much the only people who use that name are politically right-leaning. Perhaps someday it will ameliorate to be the accepted popular name of the bill but right now it is contentious. The same thing happened with Hillarycare.

I don't think you would hear much complaint if they called it the "Obama health care plan".

Bushwar!

Reply on news.ycombinator.com