Is the ACA going to stratify the population into highly educated/skilled full-timers...

[dkf]

And everyone else part-time 29 hour workers?

The more I think about it the more obvious it seems.

Highly trained people may have to work even more than 40 hours as a standard and that is who the employer needs all the time. Workers with more interchangeable skills get 29 hours and they offload the benefit costs.

Yikes.

[Fumesucker]

1. You forgot "connected" n/t

[Ron Green]

2. I hope that the ACA will decouple health care coverage from employment.

Once that trend has momentum, single payer is inevitable.

[dkf]

4. Depends. It could be you create an elite coverage with more choice

For those chosen employees.

Maybe it will be the ACA for the rest. In a way that is single payer.

[davidpdx]

59. That is kind of how it is here in Korea

If you are employed you pay 5.8% of your income. If you are unemployed you pay a different amount which depends on what assets you have. I am not employed and only pay about $68 a month. The difference between what my medication would cost without insurance and with insurance is way more than that.

Anyone who wants information can look it up:

http://www.korea.net/AboutKorea/Living-in-Korea/National-Health-Insurance-for-Foreign-Nationals

http://www.nhis.or.kr/static/html/wbd/g/a/wbdga0101.html

http://www.coopami.org/en/countries/countries_partners/south_korea/social_protection/pdf/south_korean_health_care_system.pdf
(this paper is a bit dated, from 2009)

http://emlab.berkeley.edu/users/webfac/held/korea.pdf
(this one has good information and graphs)

[Ohio Joe]

3. Workers being treated as slave labor is not the fault of the ACA

I find it fucked up to make that association.

[dkf]

6. It creates more incentive to divide that way.

And it's not "slave labor". Geez.

[Ohio Joe]

9. 'Work as many hours as told or get dropped to part time' Yeah, I'll call that slave labor

And it is still fucked up to associate these issues with the ACA.

[dkf]

10. Eyikes. Okay I see your point

[FarCenter]

5. Only legislative idiots would write laws making a sharp distinction between more & less than 30 hrs

The mathematical functions in laws should not have discontinuities in them.

This can be fixed with a simple adjustment to the law.

[dkf]

7. For all we know it's designed to decrease unemployment.

It sure works that way in any case.

It just came to me that if you have a defined elite your education costs are less too.

You have to wonder if there is some social engineering aspect to this.

[FarCenter]

12. The other idiocy is treating employers of more than 50 differently from those with fewer employees

These two step functions have caused more trouble and controversy with ACA than anything else in the legislation.

It could have been avoided by writing language that provides a smooth transition between part and full time work and between small and large employers.

[dkf]

14. It's smarter but probably harder to implement.

You would constantly need to gauge and change is not easy.

[jeff47]

19. Really?

I'm very interested in hearing how you create a smooth function between two boolean states.

[FarCenter]

20. Simply make the employer penalty a function of the number of employees between 30 and 70.

[jeff47]

62. So your smooth function includes two cliffs. (nt)

[FarCenter]

63. Use a sigmoid function.

[Fumesucker]

8. Somewhere, Mark Twain is laughing his ass off

"Suppose you were an idiot, and suppose you were a member of Congress; but I repeat myself." - Mark Twain


"All Congresses and Parliaments have a kindly feeling for idiots, and a compassion for them, on account of personal experience and heredity." –Mark Twain


“Politicians and diapers must be changed often, and for the same reason.”

― Mark Twain

[dkf]

11. Lol. That's the kind of ad I wouldn't mind seeing.

[lumberjack_jeff]

13. Marginally.

If so, it will also create demand for more low-skilled workers, and get more of the working poor onto medicaid.

Those individuals, once freed from the need to cling to a job for its insurance have more freedom to become self-employed, seek additional skills or better jobs.

Yes, it'll separate healthcare from employment and I think that's largely a good thing.

Making overtime double-time will help encourage employers to hire and train more high skilled workers.

[dkf]

15. Interesting.

[former9thward]

22. If the working poor go onto medicaid

they would have zero incentive to become self-employed, seek skills or better jobs. They would lose medicaid when they got paid more and would have to buy insurance.

[lumberjack_jeff]

25. At what pay rate would it be economically rational to reject a raise?

If your raise takes you above the medicaid threshold, it simply gets you into the subsidized private insurance realm.

[kelly1mm]

28. For a family of two, a raise that takes your family income from $62,400 to anything less than $75k.

There is a HUGE drop from about 60% subsidy (about $11,500 of the 16k total) at 400% of poverty line to $0 for 401% of poverty level(assuming both individuals are 50+). After taking into account SS/medicare/income tax and ACA subsidy, you would not have a single extra dollar of (edit = take home) income unless you went from 62k to over 75k.

[former9thward]

64. Subsidized is not free.

There is a big difference. In terms of your question it is impossible to answer without the actual real life math.

[lumberjack_jeff]

65. At the lower end of the economic spectrum, as you earn more money, you pay a larger percentage

for medical care.

But at no point below $50,000 family income does it make economic sense to reject a raise. As you approach that 400% FPL threshold, the subsidy diminishes, but you're still better off earning $19 per hour than $18.

[Warren Stupidity]

16. We are already stratified into skilled professions and McJobs.

And the McJobs are all getting automated out of existence. The future, which could be a socialist utopia where work for survival is replaced with avocation and service and leisure, will instead be the dystopic right-libertarian nightmare of Elysium.

[Fumesucker]

17. Some people just cannot enjoy themselves unless they know others are miserable

[on point]

18. It will prove first that benefits should be hourly pro rated & then single payer is better

[JaneyVee]

21. It will tilt power in the labor market away from employers and toward employees.

[pnwmom]

23. No. The ACA isn't responsible for a trend that started at least a decade ago. n/t

[Dawson Leery]

26. +1

[dkf]

50. But it makes the cost benefit so much more obvious.

I see it accelerating now that the boundary is so well defined.

[Demo_Chris]

24. Simply, the ACA is going to be a major problem for our party in the future

My family has 3 people -- my adult daughter lives with us. We earned a combined 35K last year, which means we are both poor and not at all atypical in this 'recovery' economy. We have no medical coverage and no access to healthcare. We simply cannot afford it -- we struggle to eat during the winter months.

Thanks to Obamacare, I am now legally mandated to purchase a policy which -- according to the government -- will run me about $350 per month. This policy will not provide me with any actual healthcare, it will come with a massive co-pay and deductible, and thanks to the monthly bill I will be LESS able to afford healthcare than I am today.

Being poor, I cannot afford a $350 a month bill -- even if the insurance companies really REALLY want my money. I don't have it. I don't have $350 and I don't even have $150 extra dollars. But that doesn't matter.

Thanks to Obamacare, I will now be a criminal and subject to a fine which I also cannot afford. I am being fined for the crime of being poor in America.

There are millions and millions of people just like me who looked to the Democratic party to represent our interests. We worked and voted to elect Obama. This is what it got us. Fined for the crime of being poor. Forced to purchase worthless products we cannot afford from mega-corporations so that they can enjoy guaranteed profits, and so that wealthy folks with existing policies can enjoy lower rates.

My family isn't getting healthcare, we're just getting fucked. And come election time I will DAMN SURE remember.

[pnwmom]

27. Why would you be paying so much at your income?

Here is an ACA national calculator.

http://laborcenter.berkeley.edu/healthpolicy/calculator/

For example, assuming there were two 50 year old adults plus one 25 year old with a $35,000 income, it says that your family's monthly premium for a silver plan would be $156. There would also be subsidies to help you pay out-of-pocket costs.

And there is no criminal penalty, as you know; there is a civil penalty.

[Demo_Chris]

31. Completely different result than the website I checked...

http://kff.org/interactive/subsidy-calculator/

According to this one my premium would be $344 per month AFTER subsidies, assuming such a plan actually materializes.

The fact that these two sites, both claiming to provide accurate information, are so different, aught to give one pause.

In any case the fact remains that for MY family there is nothing good here. I just get screwed.

As for the penalties, there is no criminal penalty if you pay the FINE. Try not paying a speeding ticket and see that works out for you.


EDIT: I have come to the conclusion that most here don't really care all that much. It's the Democrat plan and they'll support it no matter how many poor people get screwed. Bootstraps and all that.

[pnwmom]

32. There is NO criminal penalty, period. The only penalty is the civil fine.

It is NOT like a speeding ticket. You can't go to jail for not paying it.

[Demo_Chris]

35. Do you seriously believe that you can ignore federal fines and they will just shrug it off?

Seriously?

More, do you seriously believe that they will leave the fines as low as they are now? Or do you think it's just possible, when young people all across the country tell the Federal government, the insurance companies, and the Democratic party to take their mandated insurance and stuff it up their $%#, that Congress will slap some serious penalties on there to force compliance?

And guess which party is going to get the blame.

Guess which party young people, without jobs or hope and now saddled with an Obamacare bill, are going to blame. Guess which party middle aged losers like me, just trying to get by, are going to blame when they have to choose between paying for food or paying for their mandatory Obamacare insurance? You already know the answer. Ultimately it comes down to this, and no amount of spin changes it: If you have to MANDATE something it's a shitty deal. No one has to be forced into taking a good deal, you just have to explain it to them, but a shitty deal you have to force them. That's why it's mandatory.

[pnwmom]

48. I don't just believe, I know. The law was written to impose a civil fine, not a criminal one.

And I can't imagine this Congress, given the standoff between the R's and the D's, slapping on criminal penalties. LOL.

This plan has already been tried in NY without a mandate, and premiums went up and up because only sicker and sicker people joined. The only way it could work is if all people are included, whether they are sick at the moment or not.

But you can easily solve your personal problem. Step 1: your family smoker should stop smoking and your family will immediately owe half as much in premiums, for a total of about $50 per person. Step 2: take the cost of the former smoking habit and use it to pay for health insurance for the three of you instead.

[pnwmom]

34. I just checked your Kaiser website and got the same figure -- $1870 per year (or $156 a month)

for a silver level plan. That was for a family consisting of two 50 year olds and one 25 year old, all nonsmokers, with an income of $35K.

How did you end up with a figure more than twice as much?

[Demo_Chris]

37. No clue, one smoker, two people age 46, one at 22, no kids. Premium: $4134 per year. nt

[pnwmom]

40. So you're paying twice as much because of the smoker.

But there is a way your family could save a lot of money and be healthier, too. . .

[Demo_Chris]

44. A disporportionate number of poor people smoke...

Which again matters politically. Whatever your (or my) personal feelings about smoking, we are talking about the political fallout from this law.

[pnwmom]

45. And a disproportionate number don't vote.

I could be wrong, but I doubt that there will be a huge negative fallout from this particular aspect of the law.

I hope you or your loved one tries to quit. My uncle and grandfather both quit a two pack a day habit, and my mother quit using a smaller amount. And this was in the era before nicotine patches. It's hard but it can be done. (And your 21 year old will appreciate it. I was so happy when my mom quit.)

[Demo_Chris]

41. AND... in any case all this discussion of numbers misses the point...

If you cannot afford it you cannot afford it. I cannot afford $350 a month or $150 a month, and certainly not for an 'insurance' plan that I cannot afford to actually use.

And MILLIONS of people are going to fall into this same boat. Millions are going to look at this and discover that they are now stuck with yet another freaking bill, and they aren't going to understand it. They won't understand the program, they won't see the benefits (largely because for most of them there aren't any), all they will see is a bill that guarantees profits and customers for the insurance industry that is already screwing them over.

And they'll see that our party is the one that did this to them, and the GOP is fighting to get it repealed.

[pnwmom]

47. A person who smokes a pack a day could quit and use it for the $156 a month insurance premium.

http://eclecticsite.com/smoking.html

If the person smokes a lot less than that, they won't save as much money -- but it would be that much easier to quit.

I don't think it makes much sense to say that someone can afford a cigarette habit and they can't afford to spend $50 a month per person on health insurance. Is that cigarette craving worth depriving three people of health insurance and subjecting the smoker to the risks of cigarettes?

[dkf]

54. I hear you Chris...

If government wants to force people to pay we should just go to single payer already. Then we can be smarter about allocating our health dollars instead of compelling people into our bloated hyper expensive system of "access".

Moreover while I would never advise anyone to keep smoking it isn't Government's job to basically tax people out of using their free will to access a legal product.

[pnwmom]

66. Are you defending the idea that a person can afford cigarettes costing $150 a month

but not health insurance (for a household of three) that costs $150 a month?

That one person's cigarettes should take priority over health insurance for three?

Do you object to all government taxes on cigarettes or only the ones that affect health insurance?

[dkf]

67. How does that not work for all health costs?

A lot of it is "bad habits".

Look at all the expenses we incur that contribute to health problems, most products with sugar, alcohol, things that lead to a sedentary life including entertainment...

What we eat, drink, watch...

Smoking is only one of a list.

[pnwmom]

68. It does.

The poster complained he couldn't afford to pay for his household insurance premium of $343 dollars on his income of $35,000.

I pointed out that if none of the three adults in the family smoked, their household premium would be only $156 -- about $52 per person.

Then he insisted he couldn't even afford that amount on his limited income. However, if he has $150 a month to spend on a pack a day of cigarettes, then he could instead spend that money on health insurance for the household.

Of course the same principle applies if he's spending $150 a month in alcohol or on Starbuck's coffee or on premium cable channels. But I don't know what discretionary expenses he has other than the cigarettes.

[PoliticAverse]

51. Actually the way the penalty is currently implemented, the IRS can only apply it against...

any tax refund you are receiving.

[dkf]

55. So it you adjust your exemptions to not receive a tax refund you will never pay the penalty?

I can't believe its that easy.

[PoliticAverse]

57. Kinda, please see this Washington Post article for an extensive discussion of the matter...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/05/13/readers-ask-we-answer-what-happens-if-you-dont-pay-obamacares-tax-penalty/

It was one of the compromises made to get the PPACA passed.

Note that the penalty carries over to following years if they can't deduct it from your refund in the year it applies.

[dkf]

58. Holy cow it just grows year after year after year with interest?

A debt to the Federal Government doesn't go away.

For a young person this can grow to be a very scary prospect. Talk about having a burden for life.

Can this affect employment? Credit rating?

[Dyedinthewoolliberal]

36. I say this in kind and sensitive way;

I think you are mis informed about the ACA. On October 1 you can get answers for sure from websites like www.getcoveredwa.org that is for the state of Washington but there will probably be something for where you live....

[Demo_Chris]

38. Texas will undoubtedly get right on that. lol

[Dyedinthewoolliberal]

39. Did Texas accept Expanded Medicaid?

That is where the funding comes from

[Demo_Chris]

42. Knowing Texas I doubt it. nt

[Dyedinthewoolliberal]

43. Try this website

Www.healthcare.gov and nap alliance.org

[PoliticAverse]

53. No, Texas isn't participating in the expanded Medicaid part of the ACA. n/t

[PoliticAverse]

52. The federal government will be running the exchange for texas. n/t

[historylovr]

46. +1

[dkf]

60. Reading up and you may be exempt from the penalty.

http://www.kaiserhealthnews.org/Stories/2013/September/03/FAQ-on-individual-insurance-mandate-ACA.aspx

A. Yes, the government has identified exemptions. Individuals who cannot afford coverage because the cost of premiums exceed 8 percent of their household income or those whose household incomes are below the minimum threshold for filing a tax return are exempt. People experiencing certain hardships, including those who would have been eligible for Medicaid under the health law's new rules but whose states chose not to expand their programs, also are exempt.

[nashville_brook]

29. clearly this is a provision/oversight of ACA that needs to be fixed.

we can't ignore the economic consequences of this, and it's not admitting defeat to fix something that needs to be fixed.

good item for Dems to remember in 2014.

[NoOneMan]

30. Yeah, probably. Yay political win

[joshcryer]

33. I look forward to the people bemoaning losing their PRIVATE health plans...

...to be replaced by a public one.

[dem in texas]

49. My take on this

This will end up hurting employers who cut back full-time employees to part-time. The fact that the worker could get insurance through their employer was one of important reasons people stuck in these jobs. Now they have nothing to lose if they quit. Employers will have a hard time getting and keeping competent and reliable part-time help.

[dkf]

56. Because there will now be a surfeit of part time jobs?

Could be. But you know they have to test the theory first or see how others do with it.

Let the experiment begin I suppose.

[Douglas Carpenter]

61. what we need is a real socialized healthcare system - like a cross between the single payer

and the British NHS. Otherwise we will never get away from a highly exploitive system that simply hires more experts to cook the book in order to maximize profits while minimizing healthcare delivery. The argument that ACA is simply better than nothing may hold some water - but the harmful unintended consequences counterbalance much of that advantage.