-By Warner Todd Huston
It has been estimated that employer mandates forced on businesses by H.R. 3200 and the other legislation barreling through Congress will cost America’s businesses $49 billion a year if passed.
According to the Heritage Foundation the mandates in the bills now under consideration will force employers to buy healthcare insurance for their employees or pay a per head tax to the federal government. This could affect between 95 million to 105 million workers and about 1 million small businesses.
What will this mean to America’s business community?
The mandates will cost businesses at least $49 billion per year and put 5.2 million low-wage workers at risk of unemploy_ment or reduced working hours. The prospect of fewer job opportunities in the future will put another 10.2 million workers at risk of slower wage growth and cuts in other benefits. Up to 382,000 low-wage unskilled workers are likely to lose their jobs.
Worse, these higher costs of doing business will be passed onto customers in higher prices and/or restricted availability of products. It cannot be ignored that higher prices will hurt low-income households the hardest.
This all amounts to a defacto tax increase for all Americans regardless of income level.
There will be another result of these mandates. Millions of workers will actually lose their healthcare as smaller businesses realize that it will be cheaper to pay the government fines for not having healthcare than to actually pay for and endure the administrative annoyances of administering a healthcare plan.
So in what is supposed to be an assurance that people can “keep their plans if they like them,” Obama will be forcing millions of workers to lose their plans whether they like them and want to keep them or not.
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Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago based freelance writer, has been writing opinion editorials and social criticism since early 2001 and is featured on many websites such as NewsBusters.org, RightWingNews.com, CanadaFreePress.com, StoptheACLU.com, TheRealityCheck.org, RedState.com, Human Events Magazine, AmericanDailyReview.com, and the New Media Journal, among many, many others. Additionally, he has been a frequent guest on talk-radio programs to discuss his opinion editorials and current events and is currently the co-host of “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Conservatism” heard on BlogTalkRadio. Warner is also the editor of the Cook County Page for RedCounty.com.
He has also written for several history magazines and appears in the new book “Americans on Politics, Policy and Pop Culture” which can be purchased on amazon.com. He is also the owner and operator of PubliusForum.com. Feel free to contact him with any comments or questions : EMAIL Warner Todd Huston
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