SCOTUS Decision on Health Care

[jonquil]

If it were up to me, insurance companies would be taken off the healthcare map completely. It would be Medicare for all, with severe regulations, price containment, and enforcement.

[lizbethrose]

I don't know if you're defined as a small business owner, given 120 employees, but there are tax credits offered to sbos under the Health Reform Act, along with other 'incentives.' What changes do you see coming in the future as a result of the SCOTUS decision? Do you think any of your employees would choose to drop the insurance you offer them if they were offered a comparable plan at the same price without your subsidies, assuming they knew how much it costs you to offer them health insurance?

As for you, my friend, stay in the best of health and include the cost of future health care in your retirement plan. As long as you pay for your care, no one is going to bother you. The IRS won't ding you as long as you pay up front. At least, that's how I understand it.

[Jamazing]

I don't know if you're defined as a small business owner, given 120 employees, but there are tax credits offered to sbos under the Health Reform Act, along with other 'incentives.' What changes do you see coming in the future as a result of the SCOTUS decision? Do you think any of your employees would choose to drop the insurance you offer them if they were offered a comparable plan at the same price without your subsidies, assuming they knew how much it costs you to offer them health insurance?

As for you, my friend, stay in the best of health and include the cost of future health care in your retirement plan. As long as you pay for your care, no one is going to bother you. The IRS won't ding you as long as you pay up front. At least, that's how I understand it.

The tax credit is only for those with 25 or less employees and basically pay minimum wage, I have checked into that already. I will have to drop the current policy by 2017 already, it falls under the "Cadillac Tax" rules, and we definitely can't afford that as an employer or employee. I have been looking into the wage increase/subsidies decrease, but the numbers aren't working, it would work for me but my employees would not be able to make it. They can't drop coverage or I will pay have to pay a $2,000 tax per employee. So I have to find a way or lay them off, which I can't operate at my normal production level without them, and it would crush them as a family to do so. I am currently looking into a confidential 3 month lay-off notice to those employees and dropping services to several customers but I haven't given up on finding a way not to do it.

They will ding me because you have to report it on all the W-2's of all employees, including myself. I didn't have to do it last year because I have less than 250 employees but I will this year.

[lizbethrose]

Have you thought of dropping your company's insurance plan in lieu of offering your employees subsidies, if needed, when they enroll in a plan of their choice under the Health Care Law? or does the paperwork involved override benefits to both you and your employees?

Your concern is really your bottom line, isn't it? Tell your employees the company can no longer afford to give them health insurance at the current rates, but it can afford to subsidize a plan they may or may not choose under the new law.

There's just too much misinformation and tripe, It's been going on for years. If you're intelligent enough to have built up a business, you should be able to see beyond the obfuscations.

[Flannel Jesus]

Sounds like you've been put between a rock and a hard place with this new law, Jamazing. Overhead has increased to the point where costs are slowly creeping up, and revenue isn't creeping up to compensate. Contrary to what some good-natured but naive people might say, there in fact isn't always a solution -- sometimes, a certain business model just can't exceed its costs with its revenues. It's a fact of business.

You can consider all possible business models as on a continuum of profitability: some obviously have negative profitability -- things that cost more to produce than you can get for selling them, for example -- and some have positive profitability -- things or services that cost less to produce than they do to sell. Some businesses are right at the teetering edge of that line between positive and negative -- ie close to 0 -- and sometimes, just sometimes, a new law passes that increases the overhead of those businesses just enough to the point where there really is nothing you can do. You now have a losing business, through and through.

I hope that's not the case with your business, but it's clear that you've done the research and it's undeniable that, at the very least, your overhead has gone up. There may be some loopholes in the law, there may be some way you can get over this mess, but there may also be absolutely nothing you can do. Your overhead has gone up. It's not an obfuscation, it's something you've calculated and found to be true. The best we can hope for is that it hasn't gone up so much that you no longer have a profitable business.

[Helandhighwater]

Sounds like you've been put between a rock and a hard place with this new law, Jamazing. Overhead has increased to the point where costs are slowly creeping up, and revenue isn't creeping up to compensate. Contrary to what some good-natured but naive people might say, there in fact isn't always a solution -- sometimes, a certain business model just can't exceed its costs with its revenues. It's a fact of business.

You can consider all possible business models as on a continuum of profitability: some obviously have negative profitability -- things that cost more to produce than you can get for selling them, for example -- and some have positive profitability -- things or services that cost less to produce than they do to sell. Some businesses are right at the teetering edge of that line between positive and negative -- ie close to 0 -- and sometimes, just sometimes, a new law passes that increases the overhead of those businesses just enough to the point where there really is nothing you can do. You now have a losing business, through and through.

I hope that's not the case with your business, but it's clear that you've done the research and it's undeniable that, at the very least, your overhead has gone up. There may be some loopholes in the law, there may be some way you can get over this mess, but there may also be absolutely nothing you can do. Your overhead has gone up. It's not an obfuscation, it's something you've calculated and found to be true. The best we can hope for is that it hasn't gone up so much that you no longer have a profitable business.

This is shameless socialism and you should be burnt for your heresy.