As Obamacare Proves Expensive, Employers Trim Benefits to Cut Costs
2nd May 2013
My, what a surprise! Aren’t you surprised? I’m sure surprised.
f you make it more expensive to employ people, say by mandating health coverage and also hiking the cost of that coverage with a giant government program we’ll call “Obamacare,” employers have a limited set of options: They can eat the cost, if they’re lucky enough to have a healthy profit margin that can be partially sacrificed; they can find a way to employ fewer workers; or they can reduce the cost of the workers they have. All of the approaches are likely to be used to one extent or another. We already know that many companies are reducing workers’ hours and turning to temp workers. And there’s evidence of firms eliminating health coverage that’s not required by law or else self-insuring if they employ disproportionately young and healthy workers. Now comes word that many firms are cutting the overall cost of worker benefits so that they can better shoulder the costs of Obamacare.
Everything the government touches turns to shit, and winds up costing ten times what it ought. You can carve that in stone.