[radditsu]

Originally Posted by Nikon [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

I'm fairly certain 90% or better of ANYONE that talks politics has no idea what they are talking about. Everyone just regurgitates something they heard on TV or from some unreliable source.

I own part of a small business (less than 50 employees). It's not mandatory that I provide healthcare for my employees because of this, but I do. And I happen to have a side-by-side comparison sheet in front of me for one of my admin employees.

Same plan before and after ACA:

HMO
Deductible: $500/$1,000
Office Visits: $20/$40
Inpatient Hospital: 20%
Out of Pocket Limit: $6,350/$12,700
Prescription Drug Tiers: $15/$45/50%/20%
Includes basic dental

Monthly Premium before January 2014: $565.48
Monthly Premium after January 2014: $754.67

Now while that may not seem like much of an increase to some people, when you're trying to make money running a business and you're paying on average $189.19 more per month per employee for what they've already had for years, it doesn't make you very happy. That's $2,270.28 per year extra per person. I have an admin staff of 8 which puts me at $18,162.24 extra for the year just for healthcare that I didn't have to spend last year.

And to whomever mentioned premium increases, yes, that is standard in the industry. But our increases up until this point had been +dollars per year, not +100's of dollars. I am sure some employers do exaggerate the increases from ACA, but think if I had double, triple, or even four times as many employees. The costs add up quickly. I have heard stories of larger increases from other business owners but this is personally what I'm experiencing. Now I'm not directly carrying any costs over to my employees, but I can say that when it comes time for reviews for raises, it will definitely factor in.

What I've heard some companies in my situation (small business not required by law to provide healthcare) mulling over is the possibility of discontinuing healthcare coverage and raising the employee hourly rates by a fraction of what the new health care would cost. So say I'm paying a total of $754.67 per month per employee (translates to ~$4.72/hr), I could discontinue the healthcare coverage and pay my employees an extra $3.00-$3.50 per hour to 'compensate'. While it wouldn't cover their total cost of healthcare, it would still cost the company less in the long run and we could say that we were compensating for the difference. Bigger companies are simply slashing hours so that employees don't meet the minimum hours-worked requirement for the healthcare. Like it or not, this is the new reality.

TL;DR: ACA/Obamacare costs your company more money = FACT.

Cause they dont want you to provide it. They want you to punt it over to the exchanges. That and insurance companies love to nickel and dime people in situations like this. I hate buying insurance....