Health Care Thoughts: Law of Unintended Consequences
by Tom aka Rusty Rustbelt
Health Care Thoughts: Law of Unintended Consequences
Unions have been enthusiastic supporters of Obamacare.
But not all unions and not all unions benefits are the same. Unions with lower income members are suddenly discovering the PPACA deal is not so great for everyone.
Lower income workers with union plans will not be eligible for subsidies, and now the unions want to change the rules. Unions lobbied for this early on but were denied by the Obama administration.
(There is no monopoly on self-interest here, some large businesses (think Wal-Mart) will be maneuvering to dump workers into state Medicaid plans.)
Employers with union plans are paying higher premiums as the working class pays for improvement in coverage mandated by PPACA. This can be critical in bid areas such as construction. Unintended consequences can be quite cruel.
This is an example of “wishes” running into the 2X4 called “reality.” The fact is that many businesses, especially smaller ones, are operating so close to the margin that they cannot afford the cost of the mandated coverage. To paraphrase Nancy Pelosi, “we’ll have to let time pass to find the problems with this thing.” Obamacare, while well intentioned, was a disaster in the making and I fully expect to see more stories like this as additional pieces of this rolling train wreck are implemented over the next few years.