More Businesses Opting Out of Obamacare

Written by Stanley Goldfarb on Wednesday May 18, 2011

More and more businesses are having to face up to Obamacare's fundamental flaw. To paraphrase Jimmy McMillan: the cost is too damn high.

Last week, the Obama administration approved over 200 new waivers for the Democrats’ health reform bill, more proof that businesses realize the plan is fundamentally flawed.

To say that Obamacare is fundamentally flawed is like saying Donald Trump would probably not be welcome at the Harvard Faculty Club (then again if he gave them an endowed chair, they might make him a lifetime member).

That companies and unions need to  request waivers of the requirements for a $750,000 level of coverage and comprehensive services including vision, dental, and other services when they currently provide much lower levels of health insurance for their employees illuminates the central problem with the law. To paraphrase Jimmy McMillan: the cost is too damn high.

Most small companies can’t afford to provide comprehensive fee for service, unmanaged health insurance to their employees. If business can’t provide it now, the unaffordability of comprehensive insurance will be transferred to the taxpayers. Subsidies will be provided to the new insurance exchanges and we’ll have to borrow trillions of dollars more in the coming years to pay for it.

If Obamacare succeeds in its essential goal of providing comprehensive health insurance to another 30 million people, companies will be foolish not to put their employees into the newly created plans. Certainly all the companies and organizations that have requested waivers will be doing exactly that. They can’t afford comprehensive insurance now and won’t be able to afford it in 2014.

The political debate over Medicare’s future is focused on the cost of care yet the Obama administration has been silent about controlling costs for the currently uninsured under-65 cohort. The whole focus of Obamacare is on finding money to insure that group and not on controlling the costs of the care they will receive.  These costs are another burden soon to be shouldered by a nation deep in debt.

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