Where’s Daniel Becker when you need him??
‘Small business representative’ still has some meaning for people, but of course the term is gamed constantly in the political arena. Via Alternet comes this example:
This morning, NPR’s Yuki Noguchi wanted to know how an ordinary small business owner feels now that the Obama health care law has been upheld. So she turned to this guy:
…
Well, as it turns out, Joe Olivo of Perfect Printing turns up quite a bit in public discussions of this and other issues. Here he is testifying against the health care law before House and Senate committees in January 2011. Here he is on the Fox Business Network around the same time, discussing the same subject. Here he is a few days ago, also on Fox Business, talking to John Stossel about the law. Here he is discussing the same subject on a New Jersey Fox affiliate.
And here he is in July 2010 discussing small business hiring with Neil Cavuto on Fox News. Here he is opposing an increase in the minimum wage in an MSNBC debate a couple of weeks ago.Go to many of these links and you find out something about Joe Olivo that NPR and NBC didn’t tell you: he’s a member of the National Federation of Independent Business. NFIB’s site and YouTube page promote many of Olivo’s public appearances. He was the subject of an NFIB “My Voice in Washington” online video in 2011.
NFIB, you will not be surprised to learn, is linked to the ALEC and Karl Rove’s Crossroads GPS, and to the usual rogues’ gallery of right-wing zillionaires.
So Joe Olivo isn’t just some random business owner — he’s dispatched by NFIB whenever there’s a need for someone to play a random small business owner on TV.
The law will give some small businesses tax incentives to pay for employee health care. Starting in 2014, those with 50 or more employees will be required to provide it.
Yeah, well, when they say “small” they mean “small, as in $50 million net year in and year out, which is just not a lot of money. Right. They don’t mean small as in one man furniture making shop, custom furniture to order not the same thing at all or flowers for your daughter’s wedding with a week’s notice. No, that’s not small. It’s unimportant to the point of nonexistence. NancyO
http://www.coyoteblog.com/coyote_blog/2012/06/quick-observations-about-the-nfib.html
“Apparently, in the political battle over Obamacare, the NFIB has become the new target of the left.. . . .
“As a member of the NFIB (I joined several years ago specifically due to their work on health care) I believe the NFIB addresses issues that really concern our company better than any other group I have found. Certainly they are far better than the Chamber of Commerce, which tends to be a group of large companies more interested in crony handouts than free competition. Members get polled constantly to see what issues we care about and to see what positions we would like the NFIB to take.
“This latter process makes the NFIB among the most virtuous of the organizations to which I have belonged. Certainly the Sierra Club, way back when I was a member, never polled me on whether I preferred them to focus their efforts, say, on political activism or true conservation efforts.
“I am exhausted by journalists and politicians on the Left who have barely even worked in a profit-making venture, much less run one, who speak with great authority on what small business owners should or should not want. “
I wasn’t aware mjed.
Business with 50 employee’s are going to struggle with this. They should have never used employee count to determine if a business can afford to take on what could be at a minimum guess $7 to $8K per employee.
For me, I’m still waiting for the flower shop decline to end. Every year it’s a little more down. Ahhhhhhhhhhh!
this is interesting; casey mulligan at the NYT says with the medicare expansion, lotsa people will quit their jobs because they’ll get free health care…
Medicaid Expansion and Jobs “Many governors may have to choose between containing unemployment and expanding Medicaid, an economist writes.”
Oh sure, because getting free health care is all that a person desires or needs to pay for.
This sound to me like that negative motivation argument stuff. You know, people are mostly lazy thus need to be whipped.
Well, Daniel Becker, take a look at this discussion taking place among people most of whom are higher (professional) income. They want to “retire early” but health care is sometimes an obstacle. Don’t miss the last part of the discussion where Medicaid becomes a subject.
http://www.early-retirement.org/forums/f28/obamacare-more-incentive-to-early-retire-61974.html
M.Jed:
Oh phuleseeee. Target of the left???? Yea right. Koch Bros, ALEC, and Norquist are scabs on society.
On another note, you and your group may wish to become involved in this: http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-drop/n-12-32.pdf “Request for Comments.”
Daniel:
Where did the $7,000 come from? I am reading substantially less for employers from 50 to 100.
“If an employer with 50 or more workers does not offer health insurance coverage to its workers and at least one full-time employee receives a subsidy through the exchange, the employer will be assessed $2,000 per full-time employee, excluding the first 30 employees. If an employer does offer insurance to its workers but at least one full-time employee obtains coverage through the exchange with a subsidy, the employer will be assessed $3,000 for each employee getting a subsidy or $2,000 per full-time employee, whichever is less.” http://www.rwjf.org/files/research/68868.pdf
M. Jed:
As I quoted to Daniel below:
“If an employer with 50 or more workers does not offer health insurance coverage to its workers and at least one full-time employee receives a subsidy through the exchange, the employer will be assessed $2,000 per full-time employee, excluding the first 30 employees. If an employer does offer insurance to its workers but at least one full-time employee obtains coverage through the exchange with a subsidy, the employer will be assessed $3,000 for each employee getting a subsidy or $2,000 per full-time employee, whichever is less.” http://www.rwjf.org/files/research/68868.pdf
Joe is careful not to get into the numbers aspect of the discussion so it is difficult for the general public to know what the issues are exactly. Unless, I am missing something here, small business of 50 to 100 employees are not harmed as badly as Joe would have us believe. I am not so sure employers of 25 to 49 employers suffer from the aspects of the ACA either. They may not gain as much; but, I do not see where they are harmed either. You are welcome to provide data to make your point.
Aligned with Koch Bros, ALEC, and Norquist certainly does not gain he NFIB credibility.
A final note which the NIFB may consider doing is send comments here: http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-drop/n-12-32.pdf It has to do with minimum coverage also.
Dan(s):
Joe from the NFIB carefully skirts numerics on the same order as the Plumber. He is basically saying “I am losing” without giving reasons why or providing numbers.
In case you thought the Repubs were the culprits in the ACA challenge in SCOTUS, guess again. It appears the NFIB were the main culprits.
“The landmark health care case decided last week by the Supreme Court was a win for the Obama administration and a loss for the Republican Party. But the official plaintiff in the case wasn’t a Republican congressional leader or even one of the conservative attorneys general whose activism fueled the litigation. It was the NFIB, a small-business membership organization and lobbying group that strongly opposed the law.”
– Firms with fewer than 50 employees are also exempt from the “employer responsibility” provision of the law that otherwise constitutes the biggest business burden in the legislation
– the law stipulates that companies whose employees receive subsidies to buy exchange plans must pay a financial penalty
More than anything the NFIB does not want to pay taxes whether it is for the ACA or for internet sales. http://www.slate.com/articles/business/small_business/2012/07/nfib_is_wrong_on_obamacare_the_aca_should_actually_help_small_business.html?wp_login_redirect=0 Matt has a good article on Slate explaining their anti-tax Norquist stance.
$7000 is about what a policy costs these days via a business. I’ve heard even hire from my other business owner friends. $2000 x 20 = $40,000. That is a bit of money for a company of 50 employees.
Private plans when I recently had to redo mine was $1500 to $1900/month (Tuffs). I went with a BC $5000/$10000 plan for family of 3 at $790/m. Specifically this one. No, I do not have any money left over to actually contribute to an HSA.
Want to have some fun? Go to the Mass Health Connector and put in your info, pick a Ma zip code and see just how not cheap it is.
I don’t understand your point. I don’t see how someone that has enough for early retirement will also have so little they will qualify for medicaid. The exchanges might help, but again, go to the Mass Health Connector to see what it cost these days.
MA published a report specifically noting that families at 350 to 450% of poverty were going to be the least helped and probably the worst off with the MA system. At the time that was about $65K to $87K (if I remember correctly) for a family of 4.
So, I repeat, people quiting their job so that their income is low enough to qualify for medicaid?
BTW, I’m not saying the NFIB has it right. I’m just pointing out what I have been pointing out about the MA system. It is not all it’s cracked up to be.
$40,000 may not sound like much, but when you suddenly have to come up with that amount every year from now on…you have to squeeze another $800/yr/employee of productivity. That is about 40 cents per hour (2000 hour year)
At the same time, it is cost effective for the company to pay the penalty and not buy insurance because I doubt very much that they will find it for the same or less.
This leads to just how will the government pay for all these subsidizing? I don’t think they have budgeted enough.
Think I’m kidding about all this? Then read Ma Gov own preliminary 2012 report:
“Multiple studies have shown that health insurance premium costs in Massachusetts and the Northeast region are among the highest in the nation, placing a substantial burden on consumers and employers seeking good value for their spending on medical services. In 2010, Massachusetts had the ninth highest premium level for family coverage among all 50 states and the District of Columbia.”
The ACA has stopped some bad practices, but it has not solved the issue of lower costs for coverage.
Here is the Ma 2011 summary report on premium trends 2007 to 2009. The cost was going up as the medical loss ratio was rose from 88 to 91%. Yes we’re all praising the ACA’s 80% MLR and the recently returned money. HA!
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Daniel:
If you surrender your insurance and place them in the exchange, the overall cost to you will still be far cheaper than carrying the polices yourself. 7000 times 50 = $350,000 50 times 3000 = $150,000 s opposed to the hidden cost of no insurance which we are paying without regard to the cost and may I add at “full” non-discounted rates to the healthcare industry. I would suspect much of this is tax deductible also.
I am not nit-picking you Daniel and moreso the blindness the vast majority of people have towards the expense of a healthcare system and industry which knows no limit to what it can charge for a service/phrama/procedure that is not best in class globally for care and in many cases limited in the results achieved if any. Here in Syracuse, they built a new Mc-Health-Center at millions of dollars so they can be psudo-best in class. What was the marginal increase in quality achieved and at what cost to that incremental increase?
MA has a different program then what the ACA has which has programs bundled into it with the Medicare boys taking the lead. As shown by the S&P healthcare Indices which I have touted on this site and elsewhere numerouse times, Medicare out performs commercial insurance index (reflective of healthcare costs), the hospital index, and the professional index in containing cost. While the commercial index is at 8.46%, Medicare is tracking at 2.6% . . . an ~6% difference in cost and mostly due to the healthcare industry.
We all wanted universal healthcare, single payer, or at least expanded Medicare. Guess what, all of th were blocked. We can stick our heads in the sand again as we did with Hillarycare and demand something better, or we can whine about how poor this one program is and offer no viable and near term solutions solutions as some on this blog do or we can work to evolve this program into something better as it was the best we could achieve with the timeline in front of us then and with the the party of “No”rquist.
Doing absolutely nothing is not acceptable and why should we wait a couple of more decades for a solution which will again be $trillions more?
Dan:
MA Healthcare does not equal the ACA. The subsidies are greater in the ACA than they are in the MA eqivalent. I started to look at this and then got distracted by work . . .
rjs:
Didn’t Thoma and the others debunk this “freshwater” economics assumption? At most, the impact of having subsides for those at 133% of poverty would have a minimal impact on whether they are employed or not which is the same as the 99 weeks of unemployment. The Or are we really of the opinion that they must be exposed to the experience of the “dignity of work’ which Romney put forth for all women living in less than ideal economic conditions with the exception of his wife who has not busted a finger nail yet outside of the Romney Mc-House(s).
The author is touting his own study and then goes on to pull out a mag article from the eighties lying in his bathroom basket. His assumption is there are plenty of jobs available which pay well enough to make a living easily. I would like to see him experience life at 133% of poverty . . . and yet there are people who do it day after day.
I am not against the ACA. I just do not think people are being real about the cost and the money people without insurance now have to come up with to get their coverage. I could be wrong, but my sense of the current solvencey of most people/families and small business is that they don’t have room in their budgets to take on such an expense. If they do, it will be at the expense of other economic activity.
What does your $3000 represent? Is a company being subsidized for it’s purchase of insurance? $150K will not cover the purchase of insurance for 50 employees via an exchange. Yes, the 50 employees will have help purchasing the insurance in the exchange which is what the $150K penalty is for. I do not see any insurance plan being able to come in at numbers that the penalties paid, the taxes collected and premiums paid will cover the cost. My own plan is $9360/yr with a 10K deductable.
Thus, my point of using MA system comparisons is to get people to start thinking about just how much this is. This article notes that the average expense to a family this year is breaking the $20K mark including premiums and out of pocket expenses.
I have been a single payer advocate from the begining.
Sorry Daniel:
I did not add links. First to answer your question on 50 employees or less. The $3000 is a penalty. The first 30 employees are exempt. I miscalculated. Matt Y defined it even better:
“Firms with fewer than 50 employees are also exempt from the “employer responsibility” provision of the law that otherwise constitutes the biggest business burden in the legislation.The Affordable Care Act (in)famously requires that all individuals who don’t receive insurance from their employer or from a government program such as Medicare or Medicaid must buy their own insurance on a regulated exchange. Subsidies will be provided to those for whom such insurance wouldn’t be affordable. That could be seen as, in effect, penalizing firms that already offer insurance to their workers. To offset this, the law stipulates that companies whose employees receive subsidies to buy exchange plans must pay a financial penalty. That is supposed to deter firms from responding to the law by simply dropping existing insurance coverage. But the ACA doesn’t make small businesses pay that penalty.” http://www.slate.com/articles/business/small_business/2012/07/nfib_is_wrong_on_obamacare_the_aca_should_actually_help_small_business.html?wp_login_redirect=0 So they do not get subsidies; but, they are not penalized either. Seems like the NFIB is pissed because they drew a short straw on the subsidies.
Other links:
– http://www.rwjf.org/files/research/68868.pdf
– http://www.irs.gov/newsroom/article/0,,id=220809,00.html
– http://www.iu.edu/~healthe/Burkhauser_Lyons_Simon_w17279%20(2).pdf