This AP Article Is Everything That’s Wrong With Sensationalistic Obamacare Stories
By Igor Volsky
Employers will struggle to comply with the new health care mandates, drop insurance coverage, increase costs, and lay off workers! Low-income employees will be subject to sky high premiums, a health care mandate they can’t afford, or go uninsured altogether!
Those are just some of the wild-eyed claims buzzing around the Affordable Care Act and its implementation. Consider this lede from Friday’s Associated Press: “It’s called the Affordable Care Act, but President Barack Obama’s health care law may turn out to be unaffordable for many low-wage workers, including employees at big chain restaurants, retail stores and hotels.” The article argues that several “wrinkles” in the law could hurt the very Americans it intended to help:
Because of a wrinkle in the law, companies can meet their legal obligations by offering policies that would be too expensive for many low-wage workers. For the employee, it’s like a mirage — attractive but out of reach.
The company can get off the hook, say corporate consultants and policy experts, but the employee could still face a federal requirement to get health insurance.
Many are expected to remain uninsured, possibly risking fines. That’s due to another provision: the law says workers with an offer of “affordable” workplace coverage aren’t entitled to new tax credits for private insurance, which could be a better deal for those on the lower rungs of the middle class.
Some supporters of the law are disappointed. It smacks of today’s Catch-22 insurance rules.
Sounds troubling.
But skip down to the end of the piece and you’ll find a curious quote from Neil Trautwein of the National Retail Federation, which represents the very employers the AP claims are going to take advantage of the health law’s impurities to increase health care costs for low-income workers while avoiding its penalties.
He appears to disagree entirely with the AP’s premise, telling the wire service that there is no “grand scheme to avoid responsibility.” ThinkProgress spoke with Trautwein, who stressed that “it is manifestly not in [employers'] interest to try to choose a benefit level that is beyond their employees’ means. No good comes of it.”
“There is the opportunity, and I’d argue the incentive, for employers to make sure that more of their employees can afford the coverage they offer,” he added, pointing to a provision of the law that requires large employers that don’t provide adequate insurance coverage (the policy has to cover at least 60 percent of health care costs) to pay a fee of $2,000 per employee after the first thirty workers. Businesses would also be assessed a penalty if they offer unaffordable coverage that forces employees to spend more than 9.5 percent of income on insurance. In that case, the employee can apply for government subsidized coverage in the exchanges and the employer pays another fine.
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http://thinkprogress.org/health/2013/06/14/2158711/this-ap-article-is-everything-thats-wrong-with-sensationalistic-obamacare-stories/
= new reply since forum marked as read
Something you've posted that is NOT written by Bob Cesca!
More than anything, my respect for you has grown because you haven't placed me on ignore.
On edit... come clean. Did you un-place people you have on ignore to find out WHO actually responded to your thread?
I mean, you're focused on Bob Cesca and imagining that I'm posting multiple article by him?
Weird.
Do you disagree with what he's written?
Just because my search engine has malfunctioned temporarily (which is very strange, but yet unexplained), I can recall you posting several articles from the "Daily Banter". You, and another DUer, who appear to be tag-teaming dissent (Jimmy Durante's signature phrase comes to mind when describing this other DUer).
Off to the Wayback machine. Something is amiss...
Oh, and, apparently, the rest of DU has rejected your claims since I was the only respondent to this thread. Perhaps it's time to call it a day?
