The Obamacare Chronicles: 129 laid off from Missouri hospital due to wonderful new health bill

“But at least we won the election! Obama!!”

At this point, there’s not much we can do about it, folks. Losing a Supreme Court decision and the 2012 election guarantees that Obamacare will go into full effect on January 1st, 2014 — Happy New Year!

All we can do for now is observe and take note of the pain (some of it our own) as businesses make their plans to deal with the forthcoming train wreck, plans that include laying people off to cover the new, federally-imposed expenses:

From Channel 41 Action News (1), Kansas City, Missouri:

I’ve reported on the consequences of Obamacare before, and we’re going to see more and more as we approach 2014 and enter our Brave New World of government-controlled health care. The PPACA imposes immense burdens on businesses, and they will have to act rationally in response, whether by passing on costs to the consumer or cutting costs elsewhere — by layoffs, for instance.

People who voted for the Democrats since 2008 are, in effect, getting exactly what they voted for, even if they refused to see it at the time.  (2) To use the cliche, “elections have consequences.”

But so do bad laws, and the people can always fix their mistakes in the next election. Obamacare is the “Mother of Bad Laws,” and I predict its myriad problems are going to cost the Democrats dearly as voters harmed by Obamacare first get worried, then annoyed, then angry, and then royally ticked off. Democrats are already so worried that some are retiring to avoid facing the voters in 2014.

Elections have consequences for the ruling class, too.

via Jim Geraghty’s Morning Jolt

Footnotes:
(1) For any Obamacare apologists in the audience, before your knee jerks too much, note that Channel 41 is an NBC affiliate, not the evil FOX. When you’ve lost NBC…
(2) No, I’m not saying the people laid off in Missouri all voted for Obama and thus got what they deserved. Some almost certainly did, but we don’t know who or how many. Presuming innocence, they all have my sympathy.  But the broad electorate voted for people who used anti-constitutional means to pass a horrendous law in expectation of getting Free Stuff(tm), in violation of all the laws of economics. To them, I can only quote the words of the late, great Mayor Ed Koch: “The People have spoken … and they must be punished.”

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

The April jobs report and the part-time recovery

“But at least we won the election! Obama!!”

The Bureau of Labor Statistics released it’s report for April today, showing numbers that should at least be slightly good news for the administration: unemployment down to 7.5% and 165,000 jobs added. Recovery!!

AEI’s James Pethokoukis says “not so fast:”

US job growth in April beat economist expectations as nonfarm payrolls rose 165,000, and the jobless rate fell to a four-year low of 7.5%. But the report contained worrisome signs that President Obama’s health care reform law is hurting full-time, high-wage employment.

While the American economy added 293,000 jobs last month, according to the separate household survey, the number of persons employed part time for economic reasons — “involuntary part-time workers” as the Labor Department calls them – increased by almost as much, by 278,000 to 7.9 million. These folks were working part time because a) their hours had been cut back or b) they were unable to find a full-time job. At the same time, the U-6 unemployment rate — a broader measure of joblessness that includes discouraged workers and part-timers who want a full-time gig – rose from 13.8% to 13.9%.

What’s more, there wasa  0.2 hour decline in the length of the average workweek. This led to 0.4 percentage point drop in the index of average weekly hours, “equaling the largest declines since the recovery began,” notes economist Dean Baker of Center for Economic and Policy Research.

Let’s see, more part timers and fewer hours worked. Economist Douglas Holtz-Eakin says what we’re all thinking: “This is not good news as it reflects the reliance on part-time work. … the decline in hours and rise of part-time work is troubling in light of anecdotal reports of the impact of the Affordable Care Act.”

Jim adds that, if the Labor Force Participation Rate were the same now as it was when Obama took office, then BLS would be reporting unemployment of between nine and ten percent. (And see this for a graphic chart of how the LFPR has gone down under Obama)

It’s not that unemployment is going down, it’s that the number of people who’ve given up looking for a job is growing, and an increasing number of those who have a job are limited to part-time work, thanks to Obamacare.

Such is the nature of the Obama “recovery,” the worst since the Great Depression.

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

Congress and their aides getting an Obamacare exception?? UPDATE: @Politico jumped the gun?

If this Politico story is true, it’s pitchforks and torches time:

Congressional leaders in both parties are engaged in high-level, confidential talks about exempting lawmakers and Capitol Hill aides from the insurance exchanges they are mandated to join as part of President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul, sources in both parties said.

The talks — which involve Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), the Obama administration and other top lawmakers — are extraordinarily sensitive, with both sides acutely aware of the potential for political fallout from giving carve-outs from the hugely controversial law to 535 lawmakers and thousands of their aides. Discussions have stretched out for months, sources said.

A source close to the talks says: “Everyone has to hold hands on this and jump, or nothing is going to get done.”

Yet if Capitol Hill leaders move forward with the plan, they risk being dubbed hypocrites by their political rivals and the American public. By removing themselves from a key Obamacare component, lawmakers and aides would be held to a different standard than the people who put them in office.

Boehner couldn’t be this stupid, could he? I mean, forget Harry Reid; I wouldn’t put anything past that weasel. But Speaker Boehner has to know any deal carving out an exemption for Congress would tear the Republican coalition apart, doesn’t he? The nation overall hates Obamacare, but, to the conservative base this law is a constitutional obscenity, a legislative vampire that needs a stake driven through its heart and an anonymous burial at a crossroads at midnight. To make a deal exempting themselves from its provisions would be see as nothing less than a gross, vile betrayal, and it would cripple the Republican efforts in the 2014 elections before the campaign really got underway.

While reading the article, the cynical side of me wondered if this wasn’t a hit job by the liberal Politico, which isn’t exactly known for unbiased reporting. Throughout the article, they’re at pains to emphasize how much of a danger a deal would pose to Democrats. But, think about it: the Left will vote Democratic no matter what, because they know Obamacare is a Trojan Horse hiding within it their beloved single-payer system. They’ll let Reid cut a deal now, knowing they’ll eventually get what they want. But Boehner? What would he gain from this?Well, when I read this:

There is concern in some quarters that the provision requiring lawmakers and staffers to join the exchanges, if it isn’t revised, could lead to a “brain drain” on Capitol Hill, as several sources close to the talks put it.

The problem stems from whether members and aides set to enter the exchanges would have their health insurance premiums subsidized by their employer — in this case, the federal government. If not, aides and lawmakers in both parties fear that staffers — especially low-paid junior aides — could be hit with thousands of dollars in new health care costs, prompting them to seek jobs elsewhere. Older, more senior staffers could also retire or jump to the private sector rather than face a big financial penalty.

And this:

When asked about the high-level bipartisan talks, Michael Steel, a Boehner spokesman, said: “The speaker’s objective is to spare the entire country from the ravages of the president’s health care law. He is approached daily by American citizens, including members of Congress and staff, who want to be freed from its mandates. If the speaker has the opportunity to save anyone from Obamacare, he will.“

…I fear it’s real.

Dear Speaker Boehner: You may feel real sympathy for aides who will take a severe hit from Obamacare, but so will the rest of us, and we won’t forgive self-dealing in this case. This is a terrible, terrible idea. Don’t just call it off, call a press conference for Thursday to denounce it in unmistakable terms. Harry Reid is playing you. State as clearly as you can that Congress and all who work in it will suffer under this bill the same as all Americans, until it is repealed.

Otherwise, you can kiss off your House majority.

via Salena Zito

UPDATE: Per Ezra Klein at The Washington Post, this may be much less than it seems:

If this sounds unbelievable, it’s because it is. There’s no effort to “exempt” Congress from Obamacare. No matter how this shakes out, Congress will have to follow the law, just like everyone else does.

Based on conversations I’ve had with a number of the staffs involved in these talks, the actual issue here is far less interesting, and far less explosive, than an exemption. Rather, a Republican amendment meant to embarrass Democrats and a too-clever-by-half Democratic response has possibly created a problem in which the federal government can’t make its normal contribution to the insurance premiums of congressional staffers.

Follow the link for the rest. Which is true? We’ll just have to wait and see. (h/t “ReallyNow” in the ST comments)

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

Union that backed Obama calls for repeal of Obamacare

Because they’re finally realizing that it’s a crappy idea horribly implemented and that, no, fairies riding unicorns won’t bring you free healthcare after all:

Organized labor was instrumental in getting the Affordable Care Act passed in 2010, but more recently has voiced concerns that the law could lead members to lose their existing health plans. The United Union of Roofers, Waterproofers and Allied Workers is believed to be the first union to initially support the law and later call for its repeal.

“After the law was passed, I had great hope … that maybe the rough spots would be worked out and we’d have a great law,” said Kinsey Robinson, international president of the union, which represents 22,000 commercial and industrial roofers.

Like many unions, the roofers insure members through a so-called multiemployer health insurance plan that’s jointly managed by employers and the union. Mr. Robinson says the union’s concerns about the law began to pile up in recent months after speaking with employers.

The roofers’ union’s current insurance plan caps lifetime medical bill payouts at $2 million for active members and $50,000 for retirees. Next year, the plan has to remove those caps in order to comply with the health law. Other aspects of the retiree plan must become more generous in order to meet the law’s minimum essential coverage requirements next year. All that will increase the cost of insuring members, Mr. Robinson said, and has prompted the union to weigh eliminating the retiree plan.

It also finally dawned on these geniuses that they’re going to take another big hit when the tax on “Cadillac plans” kicks in in 2018. (You might recall that this delay was something the unions asked for, figuring it would be fixed by then. Suckers.)

I don’t know whether to laugh or cry — maybe a bit of both. Unions such as Robinson’s helped elect the worst president of the modern era, then moved heaven and earth to help pass Obamacare, a measure the majority of the nation never wanted and which the Democrats had to pass by anti-constitutional means. And now that it’s turning out to be the fiasco we all predicted it would be, he wants to say “never mind.”

You know what? I’ll be happy to work with the Carpenters or any union that wants to repeal this constitutional and economic monstrosity and replace it with a sensible plan, one based on real-world economics and that respects the liberty of the individual. Hands across the aisle, and all that.

But, I reserve one right: I get to look them in the eye, laugh out loud, and, to borrow a phrase from my good friend ST,  say “Toldjah so!!”

PS: Be sure to read the linked article. The last paragraph really will leave you laughing.

via Brian Faughnan

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

Shocker! Unexpected! Obamacare exchanges double in cost!

“No way!!”

I mean, whoever heard of a government project costing more –way more– than originally estimated?

Setting up insurance exchanges — the centerpiece of President Obama’s healthcare reform law — is costing the Health and Human Services Department a whole lot more than it originally expected. According to budget documents released Wednesday, the department expects to spend $4.4 billion on exchange grants to the states by the end of this year — double its estimates a year ago.

The HHS is also asking Congress for another $1.5 billion to set up a federal exchange in 26 states. The department has cobbled together money from other programs to get started, but officials said they need another $800 million for operational costs and $550 million for outreach and education.

What happens if Congress doesn’t approve the extra funds? After all, it rejected a similar, but smaller request just last month. An HHS budget official didn’t say, offering only that the department is committed to making exchanges work.

And you can bet on it, folks: costs will at least double, again. Probably several times. Not just because this is a government project, but because this is a poorly designed train wreck of a government project, a slow-motion debacle of epic proportions.

Memo to the House Republicans: You have one real power, the power to say “NO.” You’ve done it once already, you can do it again. And you can keep doing it every time Sebelius comes to you for “just a bit more.” Democrats rammed this crap sandwich down an unwilling nation’s throat, let them figure out how to pay for it.

May I suggest by first cutting back on a certain celebrity president’s vacations?

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

So, one of the schmucks who designed Obamacare warns it’s “too complex.”

Now that he’s retiring and doesn’t have to face the wrath of voters, Senator Rockefeller (D-WV) feels free to speak his mind:

West Virginia Democratic Sen. Jay Rockefeller, one of the towering architects of Obamacare, on Tuesday openly criticized program managers for not moving quickly enough to build the system, warning that if it gets off to a bumpy start it will just get worse.

Decrying the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act as way too complex, he warned the acting Medicare director that Obamacare is “so complicated and if it isn’t done right the first time, it will just simply get worse.”

The retiring senator also told Marilyn Tavenner at her Senate Finance Committee confirmation hearing to be administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services that Obamacare rivals tax reform in its capacity to confuse Americans.

Gee, ya think???

“This? Confusing?? Surely you jest.”

Though I don’t see what Senator “I designed this monstrosity” is complaining about; people can always get a navigator and a translator.

And don’t you find Rockefeller’s naive faith that there was any chance in Hades that Obamacare’s implementation could ever be “done right” touching and quaint? He helped create it; surely someone can figure out how to make it work!

Why, I bet he believes in the tooth fairy, too.

Memo to those who voted for Obama in 2008 and, especially, 2012: We tried to warn you!

Next time, listen.

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

Obamacare: Wasn’t it supposed to simplify things?

“Need a navigator, bub?”

Wasn’t Obamacare supposed to relieve us of the burden of worrying about our healthcare? With the government making our choices for us, with mandatory coverage for all, and with subsidies given to all who couldn’t afford the new plans, weren’t we all supposed to breathe a sigh a relief at how easy it had all become?

Well, if the road to healthcare nirvana has become so smooth and straight, why do we need tens of thousands of “navigators?”

Tens of thousands of health care professionals, union workers and community activists hired as “navigators” to help Americans choose Obamacare options starting Oct. 1 could earn $20 an hour or more, according to new regulations issued Wednesday.

The 63-page rule covering navigators, drawn up by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, also said the government will provide free translators for those not fluent in English — no matter what their native language is.

Sixty-three pages for one rule. Remind you of anything? No wonder they need make-work jobs for their union clients “navigators.” Magellan couldn’t find his way through this mess.

They’ll need navigators for the navigators.

Not only is this farcical on its face, but consider the cost: each “navigator” will (1) get $20-$48 per hour to help people through this morass. California alone has estimated it will need 21,000 “navigators.” (2) That’s an estimated $420,000 to $1,008,000 per hour, every day during the implementation period, just for one state.

Oh, and the translators. Naturally, they’ll be well-paid, especially if they speak multiple languages. Here in Los Angeles county, there are over 224 languages spoken as of the 2000 census, so you know demand will be high. And they’re mandatory: if your primary language is something as obscure as Nenets, and even if you are the only person in the area who speaks it, they have to get you a translator.

So tack that on to the hourly cost of “navigating” our brave new healthcare world.

Can I get a navigator to take me back to someplace sane, please?

via Jim Treacher

PS: A Twitter commenter reminds us that the article also mentions a voter-registration provision as part of signing up for Obamacare. I imagine all these community organizers and union members will be quite willing to help people “navigate” this part. But, don’t worry. The law requires them to be unbiased. (Yeah, I’m rolling my eyes, too.)

Footnotes:
(1) States aren’t required to pay at this rate, but, come on. You think these groups will work for less, or even gratis? I have some swampland for you, real cheap.
(2) And you can bet all of them will be dues-paying public employees union members, too.

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

Obamacare as the gateway to state-run single-payer healthcare? Colorado is the foot in the doorway.

One of the charges made by those oppose Obamacare is that it’s really a Trojan Horse for state-run single-payer system (1); that, in fact, the annoyances and fatal flaws within the PPACA –which are legion– are a feature, not a bug. The idea being that the problems will grow so great that people will demand a solution and then, by that time, the public will be open to a full-blown single payer nationalized system, the ultimate goal of the Left. In response, Obamacare supporters call that idea nonsense and dismiss critics as paranoid “see a Socialist under every bush” types.

Oh yeah? Phase Two has already begun:

State Sen. Irene Aguilar wants Coloradans to imagine a day when 80 percent of them see their health care costs drop.

She says the wildly different health care system she envisions can make that happen – largely by eliminating much of what health insurance companies do, and by purchasing everyone’s medications in bulk.

The Denver doctor and Democrat is proposing that Colorado throw out the impending reforms know as Obamacare – which is permitted if the state comes up with a better plan. This week Aguilar introduced a resolution to ask Colorado voters to create a universal health care system for the state.

(…)

Specifically, Aguilar’s bill would ask voters to create a statewide health insurance co-op, owned by all Coloradans, which would replace health insurance companies. It would offer one wide-ranging policy for all residents. It would be funded by a tax, which would replace the insurance premiums that companies and people now pay.

Emphasis added. So, if Senator Aguilar’s measure passes, we’d have a single-payer system in one state (2). What’s the problem, that’s Coloradans’ business, right?

Yes, they’re free to sink their ship any way they’d like, just as we in California are doing. But, consider this hypothetical scenario: As the years go by and Obamacare becomes more hated as its problems multiply, there will be pressure on more and more states to invoke the same bail-out provision of the PPACA that Aguilar’s bill does and opt out of Obamacare altogether, if it’s replaced with “something better.” (3)

If enough states do this, the pressure for a national single-payer system to smooth out the differences between the states will be tremendous, almost irresistible. And the enactment of that, my friends, would mark the completion of “Phase Three” and the Left’s victory.

I’ll leave the critique of the economics of the Colorado proposal to economists, though I suspect they’ll find it’s another case of “unicorns and rainbows.” And I don’t doubt that Senator Aguilar genuinely wants to help her constituents, though her method is wrong. But, politically, this plan fits right in with the Left’s strategy to follow parallel tracks at the state and federal levels to incrementally pursue a Social Democratic agenda, the underlying spirit of which is wealth redistribution.

These efforts aren’t in conflict with each other, they’re complementary. And we have to fight them on those same levels, too.

via Jim Geraghty’s Morning Jolt.

Footnotes:
(1) And I have no idea where anyone would get that notion from.
(2) Variations of which have been tried in Maine, Tennessee, and Massachusetts, all of which are failing. But this time we know it’ll be different, right?
(3) “Better,” in this case, would certainly be guaranteed universal coverage that goes beyond the PPACA, not a market-based system. Try to opt out of Obamacare and implement the latter, and just see how fast your state gets sued by the Obama administration.

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

Senate Democrats rush to repeal tax they rushed to pass without reading, first

Remember how the Democrats pushed and pushed to ram through Obamacare as fast as they could, despite huge public opposition? So fast, most didn’t even bother to read the bill before voting on it? So fast, the Senate had to use “Rube Goldberg” procedures to pass it? So fast, Nancy Pelosi said they’d have to pass the bill to find out what’s in it?

Those were the days, my friends.

But, now that they’ve found out about at least one part, the idiotic “medical devices tax,” Democrats, especially those from states where the medical device industry is important, are joining with Republicans to repeal it:

The Senate gave sweeping bipartisan approval Thursday to a proposal by Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, and Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., to put senators on record in favor of repealing a tax on medical devices – a key part of President Obama’s controversial health care law.

The Hatch-Klobuchar amendment to the GOP budget plan is the latest effort to roll back the tax that applies to a range of medical products, from surgical tools to heart devices. It’s among several taxes in Obama’s 2010 health care overhaul.

The amendment passed the Senate by a vote of 79 to 20. The bill that it was attached to did not pass, but the sponsors used it as an opportunity to rally support for repealing the tax — as well as a separate bill they’ve introduced to achieve that. 

“Today, bipartisan members of the Senate spoke loudly and clearly that this tax on medical devices simply must go.  It is a drain on innovation, on job creation and on our ability to provide ground breaking medical technologies to patients,” Hatch said in a statement.

The Affordable Care Act levies a 2.3 percent tax on medical devices with the goal of raising nearly $30 billion over the next decade.

The Obama administration, naturally, is opposed to repeal of the tax, because the money it is expected to raise is crucial to Obamacare’s funding. But Democratic senators from vulnerable seats don’t want to have to explain to angry voters why their pacemakers and prosthetics cost more, or why the pace of innovation will slow, as the profits that would have been plowed back into R&D instead goes to the Treasury.

Expect this to happen more and more as the full weight of the PPACA kicks in. An already impossibly unwieldy law will become increasingly unstable as people demand unpopular taxes be repealed or find ways to avoid them, until the whole structure just collapses.

Of course, some would argue (and I would agree) that this collapse is an acceptable outcome to democratic socialists like Obama and Illinois Rep. Jan Schakowski, who think and hope that the turmoil caused will lead people to demand what the Left really wants: state-run single-payer health care.

Our job is to remind people every day that Obamacare is itself the problem, that the only solution to rising medical costs is a program of patient-centered, market-based reforms that remove the price distortions caused by government intervention and respects the liberty of the individual. If someone says that “Too late, Obamacare is set in stone, we can only tinker with it,” just give them a one-word answer: “Prohibition.”

Meanwhile, we can enjoy the spectacle of liberals like Senator Klobuchar running screaming from the monster they helped set loose.

RELATED:

• Obamacare: More vulnerable than supporters care to admit.
• “Let’s just make sure it’s not a third-world experience.”
• ObamaCare at Three: Headed Toward Failure?

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

Obamacare: one picture is worth 20,000 pages of regulations

And this is just the start.

Via Steven Hayward, this photo shows the stack of regulations released so far for Obamacare – a stack seven feet high:

In his post, Hayward writes:

…the effectual truth of modern American government is that Congress no longer enacts laws in the meaningful sense of the word.  Instead, they pass wish lists, and delegate the actual lawmaking to unelected administrators.

Simple test: if Congress passes a statute–even one that is 1,600 pages long like Obamacare, but the law can’t go into effect as written, it is not really a law at all.  The simple proof is the photo here that Sen. Mitch McConnell’s office has released, showing the 20,000-plus pages of regulations issued so far for the implementation of Obamacare.  ”Regulation” is just a multi-syllabic word for “law,” after all.  The point is, administrators–the slightly nicer term for “bureaucrats”–now govern us much more than our elected lawmakers do.  One almost wonders why we have elections at all.  (Actually, many bureaucrats actually do wonder this.)

(Emphasis added)

That bolded portion is the key. Since the advent of the administrative state under the progressives, beginning under TR and Wilson, but really taking off under FDR, only occasionally slowing since, and now in a full-throated roar under Obama, Congress has ceded more and more of its lawmaking power to bureaucrats, chasing the progressive dream of an administrative state free of messy democratic politics and that obsolete Constitution. And this is only the start, not only of regulations under Obamacare, but the avalanche soon to come via Dodd-Frank, too.

Of course, while Congress gives away their duties to unelected mandarins, they continue to enjoy nice salaries and tremendous perks.

Nice work, if you can get it.

(h/t Jonah Goldberg)

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

Another employer drops health insurance thanks to Obamacare

And do I blame them? No. They’re being economically rational. Democrats created this mess, let them take the credit:

Universal Orlando plans to stop offering medical insurance to part-time employees beginning next year, a move the resort says has been forced by the federal government’s health-care overhaul.

The giant theme-park resort, which generates more than $1 billion in annual revenue, began informing employees this month that it will offer health-insurance to part-timers “only until December 31, 2013.”

The reason: Universal currently offers part-time workers a limited insurance plan that has low premiums but also caps the payout of benefits. For instance, Universal’s plan costs about $18 a week for employee-only coverage but covers only a maximum of $5,000 a year toward hospital stays. There are similar caps for other services.

Those types of insurance plans — sometimes referred to as “mini-med” plans — will no longer be permitted under the federal Affordable Care Act. Beginning in 2014, the law will prohibit insurance plans that impose annual monetary limits on essential medical care such, as hospitalization, or on overall spending.

Universal is one of the largest employers in Central Florida, with approximately 17,000 employees. It has thousands of part-time workers, though Universal said only about 500 of them are enrolled in the current insurance plan, as many part-timers are covered by a parent’s or spouse’s insurance.

So, that’s “only” 500 people who lose their health plans (that may well have met their needs just fine), thanks to the PPACA and the Democrats. Still, what was it someone was saying about liking your health plan…. Oh, yeah! Now I remember!

Too bad he didn’t have time to visit Universal and explain how wonderful this was to these people, while he was down there golfing with Tiger Woods…

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

More #Obamacare job losses. This thing needs to be killed.

“But at least we won the election! Obama!!”

And the good news (1) keep rolling in:

Hospital layoffs and the Affordable Heath Care Act

The Affordable Care Act is designed to make health care easier to get, but now, one local hospital says Affordable Health Care is the reason it is laying people off.

Clifton Springs Hospital let almost 60 non-clinical employees go last Friday. Hospital officials says it’s all because they’re trying to get ready for the impact of the new health care act. The act changes the way health insurance is run and the way hospitals are paid.

The Affordable Care Act means many of you will be making more decisions when it comes to your own health care. Health care workers say co-pays and deductibles will be higher, that means things like x-rays and MRI’s will cost you  more. So people will be forced to decide if they really want them. That might mean fewer people in the hospital.

Clifton Springs Hospital is preparing for that now. Last Friday, Clifton Springs Hospital laid off 58-full time employees. The reason is to get ready for the Affordable Care Act that will unfold over the next four years.

Lewis Zulick, Interim CEO of Clifton Springs Hospital, said, “That was something that we realized, especially over the last 6 months or so, that we had to do something to really match up our revenue to our expenses. That really had to do with the kind of volume we were experiencing at the hospital.”

In other words, from reading the article, it’s due to Obamacare’s refusal to allow insurance companies to pay for certain procedures, pushing that cost off on the consumer. It’s not a decision the doctor and patient make together (“Do I need this?”), but one forced on the consumer by government regulation — and that written by supposed “experts,” bureaucrats who know nothing about individual patients and their needs. The hospital anticipates fewer people opting for such procedures, thus leading them to make the logical business decision to lay people off.

Ergo, Obamacare costs jobs.

One can argue, of course, that some at least of these were unnecessary procedures that drove up insurance costs, and I wouldn’t disagree with you. That’s what’s been called “defensive medicine,” in which doctors will order “just one more test” not so much out of medical need, but to avoid being sued in our litigation-plagued society. Conservative reformers have long complained of needless malpractice suits that drive up costs for everyone.

But the solution is tort reform, dealing with the abuse of the legal systems, not top-down command-and-control rationing and regulation of the insurance and medical industries. (Ironically, uber-progressive California was the first state to introduce major malpractice reform. In 1975, under Jerry Brown!) And certainly government should never come between a doctor and patient in deciding treatment.

Meanwhile…

A global medical technology company has laid off nearly 100 employees at its offices in Tennessee and Massachusetts and is blaming the layoffs on the medical device tax tied to ObamaCare.

London-based Smith & Nephew said Thursday it laid off fewer than 100 employees between the two offices, which operate as the company’s advanced surgical devices unit, according to The Commercial Appeal.

The company specializes in developing orthopedic reconstruction products, has nearly 11,000 employees and operates in over 90 countries, according to its website.

The Affordable Care Act includes a 2.3 percent tax on medical devices, which is expected to raise nearly $30 billion over the next decade. The tax is applied to gross sales revenues.

A tax is a cost of doing business. When you raise costs, the company has three choices: it can eat the lost profits, harming the owners — perhaps a small businessman and his family, or shareholders, which may include employees and pension funds; it can pass the higher cost on to the consumer, running the risk of pricing themselves out of the market; or, they can cut other costs to balance things out. Materials are one cost, but using cheaper materials is one sure way for a medical company to be sued out of business.

But, guess what? Labor is a cost, too!

And so, thanks to the medical device tax in Obamacare, nearly 100 (more) people have lost their jobs.

Eventually, the problems are going to accumulate and annoy and outright harm enough people that they will demand something be done. Democrats and weak-kneed Republicans will want to just tinker with it, promising “fixes.”

But there is no way fix the problems with Obamacare, because Obamacare is the problem. From its most basic concepts to its details, it is one huge, honking, accelerating disaster. However long it takes, it must be repealed, destroyed root and branch. Do to it what Rome did to Carthage.

Sigh. We had our chance in 2012 to take the monster out before he did too much damage. But, we blew it then, and people are suffering for it.

And so we fight on.

via Brian Faughnan and ST.

RELATED: Stephen Green on “How to ruin healthcare in just 2000 easy pages!”  Meanwhile, the cheapest plan for a family of five under Obamacare will cost up to $20,000 per year, per the IRS. That’s almost half the median family income in the US. What was that about “affordable, again?”

Footnote:
(1) For Orwellian definitions of “good,” that is.

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

Obamacare guts the pay of yet more of its strongest supporters

“But at least we won the election! Obama!!”

We’ve seen this before: state and community colleges cutting the hours of its part-time faculty to avoid the increased financial burdens of Obamacare. Well, to paraphrase Ronald Reagan, here we go again:

In Ohio, instructor Robert Balla faces a new cap on the number of hours he can teach at Stark State College. In a Dec. 6 letter, the North Canton school told him that “in order to avoid penalties under the Affordable Care Act… employees with part-time or adjunct status will not be assigned more than an average of 29 hours per week.”

Mr. Balla, a 41-year-old father of two, had taught seven English composition classes last semester, split between Stark State and two other area schools. This semester, his course load at Stark State is down to one instead of two as a result of the school’s new limit on hours, cutting his salary by about a total of $2,000.

Stark State’s move came as a blow to Mr. Balla, who said he earns about $40,000 a year and cannot afford health insurance.

“I think it goes against the spirit of the [health-care] law,” Mr. Balla said. “In education, we’re working for the public good, we are public employees at a public institution; we should be the first ones to uphold the law, to set the example.”

Cry me a river, Robert. Stark State is upholding the law — to the letter. Obamacare, which you evidently support, redefined full-time as as average of 30 or more hours per week and, with the expansion in required coverage, greatly increased the college’s financial burden. It’s not their fault that progressive, statist Democrats, in their rush to ram an unpopular, unwanted bill down the throats of Americans, created perverse incentives that your employers found irresistible. You had your chance to reverse this last November, but, I’m willing to bet, you chose Hope and Change, instead.

You got what you voted for, dude.

Be sure to read the rest of WR Mead’s article for a good discussion of the exploitation of part-time academics in higher education. I’ve done the grad school gig myself, and what he describes is all too common. For being towers of liberal sanctimony, universities and colleges are some of the worst exploiters of labor.

via Bryan Preston, whom I quote: “Hahahahahahahahahahahaha.”

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

Hospital stops infant deliveries, citing Obamacare

Wait, wasn’t the PPACA supposed to lower medical costs? Why yes, yes it was:

Congress and the President have enacted a historic health care reform law that will help ensure that all families are able to get the care they need, as well as financial security and relief from rising premiums. The legislation is a significant first step toward bending the health care cost curve for the federal government and families, and it will yield real economic benefits.

Apparently, one Pennsylvania hospital didn’t get the memo, citing rising costs due to Obamacare as the reason to stop delivering babies:

A southwestern Pennsylvania hospital will stop delivering babies after March 31 because its obstetricians are either leaving or refocusing their practices, and because hospital officials believe they can’t afford it based on projected reimbursements under looming federal health care reforms.

Two are leaving obstetrics altogether, it seems, while two others are focusing more on gynecology. No word on how much further mothers ready to deliver will have to travel, or what this will do to the load on other hospitals.

Expect it to get much worse, much more annoying as the years go on, folks.

Elections, consequences, and all that.

via Liberty Unyielding

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

More Stomach-Turning Horror Stories from the UK Government-Run Healthcare System

Reblogged from International Liberty:

• 

During the Obamacare debate, Paul Krugman told us we could ignore stories about what was happening across the ocean, writing that “In Britain, the government itself runs the hospitals and employs the doctors. We’ve all heard scare stories about how that works in practice; these stories are false.”

Every so often, I wonder how Krugman would define a "scare story." How about starving babies to death, as…

Read more… 685 more words

If you want to see what's in store for us under Obamacare, just look across the Atlantic.

To no one’s surprise except Obama voters, another business cuts employee hours to pay for Obamacare

“But at least we won the election! Obama!!”

This time it’s a Wendy’s franchise in Omaha:

A fast-food chain is slashing employee hours so franchise owners don’t have to pay health benefits. Around 100 local Wendy’s workers have learned their hours are being cut. A spokesperson says a new health care law is to blame.

“Thirty-six to 37 hours a week.” That’s how many hours T.J. Growbeck works at the 84th and Giles Wendy’s restaurant. The money he earns helps him pay for the basics, but that’s not the case for all his co-workers. “There are some people doing it trying to get by.”

The company has announced that all non-management positions will have their hours reduced to 28 a week. Gary Burdette, Vice President of Operations for the local franchise, says the cuts are coming because the new Affordable Health Care Act requires employers to offer health insurance to employees working 32-38 hours a week. Under the current law they are not considered full time and that as a small business owner, he can’t afford to stay in operation and pay for everyone’s health insurance.

I won’t even bother to say something snarky about affected workers who may have voted for Obama (though, being Nebraska, I suspect there were few). I’ll just refer you to other posts under “Elections Have Consequences.”

But, once again, we see economically illiterate people (h/t Jim Hoft) hooting like monkeys at a business for responding rationally to changes in their costs to do business. Say it after me: “Health care is a cost, it is never free.”

If you make a business pay more to conduct business, as ObamaCare does, it has to recoup those costs somehow, or go out of business. (And yes, Lefties, not making profit to the owner’s satisfaction is a legitimate reason to go out of business. He’s not running a charity.) It can pass the cost on to the customer, or it can cut costs. One way to do so is to cut staff hours to avoid the ridiculously low definition of “full-time” written into ObamaCare.

As far as I’m concerned, this businessman did exactly the right thing in light of the burdens laid on him by progressive statists in D.C. And you can bet you’re going to see a lot more of this as the effects of ObamaCare spread.

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

Cabela's cash register 'glitch' shines spotlight on new medical device excise tax

Reblogged from Twitchy:

• 

Remember how we were all assured that we'd love Obamacare once we found out what was in it? People are already noticing shrinking paychecks, and with 2013 only three days old, people are already turning to Snopes.com — a site dedicated to debunking urban legends — to make sense of the country's new Medical Excise Tax.

https://twitter.com/ShannaGSC/status/286548716381421568

What now? We thought that only "the rich" were going to be paying more in taxes.

Read more… 625 more words

I think retailers and service businesses should add a line item for every new tax ObamaCare costs them. Make it plain to the public where the pain comes from.

An example of how Obamacare makes for worse-care

Justin Binik-Thomas’s daughter was born a few months ago with three fingers fused on one hand. The good news is surgery was recently developed that can correct this and that the family has insurance that will pay everything outside the deductible. The bad news?

For children born just a couple of years from now with the same problem, the care won’t be nearly as good:

We have met with various medical professionals to discuss treatment options. There were several possibilities discussed, and we were able to weigh these options for the best fit: Zoe’s surgery is scheduled for the day after Christmas.

We knew that surgery was likely in the near future and chose to select a top-notch full coverage insurance plan this year.

The hospital informed us that this is a fairly new operation perfected over just the last five years. However: this surgery will “cease to be available in two years for insurance patients due to ObamaCare.” This is a quote from the flustered nurse at the hospital.

This plan pays all costs incurred after the deductible, provided the services are provided in-network. The plan goes away in 2014 as a result of the health law. The best new plans to replace this will pay for 90% after deductible, and will cost more. If our daughter was born just two years later we would pay more for insurance, have inferior treatment options, and be triaged (meaning delayed) for treatment. That, in my mind, is regressive. It is not progressive as many would have us believe.

Mr. Binik-Thomas is being kind; this isn’t just “regressive,” it’s downright cruel. Chasing the mirage of free healthcare for all, national Democrats and the Left (but I repeat myself) have foisted on the nation a monstrosity that will only make care worse, even for children.

And what a bitter irony for a party that likes to play the “for the children” card whenever they can.

Be sure to read the rest of Binik-Thomas’s article for examples of how Obamacare, while only partially implemented, is already degrading the quality of healthcare. I imagine that nurse isn’t alone in her frustration. I’m certain the rest of us are in for our own.

Obamacare has got to go.

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

Liberal senators try to avoid consequences of their vote for Obamacare

Question for Senators Franken, Schumer, Kohl, et al.: If the medical device tax in ObamaCare is such a job killer that even you clowns tried to water it down (opponents of Obamacare were against it altogether), why in God’s name did you vote for it? Why didn’t you use the clout just one of you had as senators –all 60 of you were needed for passage– to have it removed and spare the workers of your states the risk of layoff and the consumers the certainty of higher prices? And what about all the other “job-killing taxes” hidden within Obamacare?

Guess the “historic moment” was too good to pass up, eh?

Chumps:

Sixteen Democratic senators who voted for the Affordable Care Act are asking that one of its fundraising mechanisms, a 2.3 percent tax on medical devices scheduled to take effect January 1, be delayed.  Echoing arguments made by Republicans against Obamacare, the Democratic senators say the levy will cost jobs — in a statement Monday, Sen. Al Franken called it a “job-killing tax” — and also impair American competitiveness in the medical device field.

(…)

The senators, who made the request in a letter to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, are Franken, Richard Durbin, Charles Schumer, Patty Murray, John Kerry, Kirsten Gillibrand, Amy Klobuchar, Joseph Lieberman, Ben Nelson, Robert Casey, Debbie Stabenow, Barbara Mikulski, Kay Hagan, Herb Kohl, Jeanne Shaheen, and Richard Blumenthal.  All voted for Obamacare.

Two other Democrats, senators-elect Joe Donnelly and Elizabeth Warren, also signed the letter.  Donnelly voted for Obamacare as a member of the House.  Warren was not in Congress at the time.

“The medical technology industry directly employs over 400,000 people in the United States and is responsible for a total of two million skilled manufacturing jobs,” the senators wrote in a December 4 letter to Reid.  “We must do all we can to ensure that our country maintains its global leadership position in the medical technology industry and keeps good jobs here at home.”

If I weren’t a softie and sympathetic toward the victims of your stupidity, I’d say I hope the tax stays right where it is and that you then have to answer to angry voters for it.

Sigh. Long ago, legend has it, Pandora unleashed a wealth of ills on the world by opening a box out of curiosity. The same could be said for Obamacare — after all, we had to pass it to find out what was in it. But maybe, again like Pandora’s box, a small bit of hope for the PPACA’s repeal was also released: With all the taxes unleashed and all the regulations engendered by this abomination, maybe people will become so annoyed and angry and frustrated that they’ll demand its repeal.

We can only hope.

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

Obamacare: the regulations avalanche begins

And this is just the start.

People are going to hate this, but, hey, it’s what they voted for:

It took the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) 159 pages to explain one new Obamacare tax on investments that will be used to pay for Obamacare.

Only individuals and families making more than $200,000 and $250,000, respectively, will be impacted by the tax, which “applies to a broad range of investment securities ranging from stocks and bonds to commodity securities and specialized derivatives.”

One new tax = 159 pages of rules, sections and subsections. You can bet your accountant is going to have to raise his rates.

But, don’t worry, these new rules and Byzantine regs only apply to those evil “rich” (1) who make more than a couple of hundred grand in combined salary and investments. That is, it will until the government admits what they knew all along, that it won’t raise enough money, that it never would raise enough money, and that they’ll –regrettably, of course, and in the name of fairness–  have to include more of the well-off. Let’s say, those who make more than $150k. Then $100K. Then…?

Former New York City Mayor Ed Koch once famously said, “The people have spoken, and they must be punished.”

Well, bend over, Obama voters, because here it comes. Shame of it is, we all have to suffer with you idiots.

More in the “Elections Have Consequences” department:

• Walmart is ending insurance coverage for new hires. Well, why shouldn’t they? It’s probably cheaper for the company to pay the fines and let people get their (taxpayer subsidized) insurance on the exchanges. Which, of course, has been the Left’s plan all along, as the goal is the ending of private medical insurance and the creation of a single-payer system.
• Cheesecake Factory CEO warns he may have to raise prices due to Obamacare. Well, duh! Insurance is a cost that has to be accounted for, or avoided. I hope the company has the guts to make this added expense clear on the check.

And you can bet there’s more on the way.

Footnote:
(1) You know. Those nasty, awful, EVIL people who run small businesses and create jobs.

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)