I just finished watching my recording of yesterday’s Daily Show. Jon Stewart was really taking off on HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, mainly asking, over and over, why was the employer mandate postponed for a year?
Not being an employer, I never paid much attention to that before, but googling around, it seems to be true. So my question is this:
If there is no employer mandate until 2015, why are we hearing so much about employers laying people off, or cutting their hours to make them part-time employees, right now? Is it a lie on the part of people saying it? Is it stupidity on the part of employers? Is it a protest/stunt on the part of employers? All of the above?
It’s because they’re getting on the bandwagon of cutting employee hours and benefits to maximize profits. Blaming Obamacare is just an excuse for what they wanted to do anyway.
They hope the employees buy the story/forget the mandate was postponed.
Doing it now instead of waiting until next year gives them a year to make sure that they’re doing what they need to do to avoid problems instead of waiting until the last minute.
Employers everywhere love to be able to blame the government of the day for any cuts they make.
Over here our local councils have all had their budgets drastically reduced in real terms. This has meant that managers have been able to take an axe to some, previously sacrosanct, services, and when the local people complain - they can just refer them to their MP.
Also, for the OP… Are you sure employers are actually laying people off or are they “talking about laying people off”? You don’t link to any actual stories about this happening, so it’s not clear that it is, happening.
Tying in healthcare with your employer is a bad idea.
Corporations will always put the money first. They don’t care if you live or die as long as they can save some cash in the progress.
Glad to live in Europe, no freaking boss telling me to suck it up to him/her or lose healthcare.
The number of employees you need to qualify is not the number of full time employees you have at the date the mandate goes into effect, but the number of full time employees over a six month period during the previous year. Thus if you want to avoid the mandate you have to cut employees in the year leading up to the mandate otherwise you will have to pay the fine anyway. Hereis a story that explains it more.
Corporations don’t exist to provide job welfare, they always want to maximize profits. If that were the only reason they are cutting they should have done it long ago.
FWIW runner pat what you’re demonstrating there is employers cutting hours and benefits because of Obamacare, or claiming it is because of Obamacare. But what you actually claimed was that it was “just because they wanted to maximize profits and are using Obamacare as an excuse.” You’re established some companies are cutting benefits and hours, and noting Obamacare as the reason. You’ve not at all demonstrated the second part, that they had “wanted to do this anyway” and that the “real reason” is just a desire to raise profit margins.
The mandate is a year away, These are large, profitable companies. What other reason can you think of for cutting hours and benefits other than to increase/maximize profits.
Your not asking me, but from what I have seen.
Where I work, about a year ago they cut most of the staff down to part time (I am one of the few still full time), and they said it is because of Obamacare. Not laying people off, but still hurting people.
It’s a reasonable speculation. But a reasonable speculation is still speculation, not citation-backed fact.
I suspect, like you, that the reasons cited are largely pretext for an opportunity to shed costs with relatively social or PR blowback. But I willingly concede that I don’t have evidence. As such, I recommend that further explorations of the “unstated REAL reasons” get taken up in IMHO or GD.
Part of what people don’t understand about business - especially large corporations is that it takes time to plan for and to implement a change. If a company is already halfway through their planning/implementation process when there is an announcement that the mandate is postponed, the company has to choose to either 1) scrap the plans for the change and go back, or 2) move ahead anyway. Keep in mind that many of these steps are expensive and involve contracts - they may hire accountants or consultants to advise on the changes, and they may put contracts in place for temp labor, insurance, rent, etc. If you’ve already spent $100,000 on consulting fees, there’s a lot of incentive to follow through with the change even if it’s an unnecessary one by the time you’re done.
The announcement to employees/the public is one of the last steps of an implementation process that takes a very long time.
But companies also realize that the mandate has only been postponed for a year. Why not implement the changes now and be ready?
If they “wanted to do it anyway”, why didn’t they? Since when do businesses need “an excuse”? So no, you have not backed up your cite. You are simply continuing to dig the hole you started with your first post.
And you haven’t even tried to address this claim. Do you want to admit that that is just your opinion?
Oh, and while you claimed that " These are large, profitable companies", one of your cites says “A handful of big-name firms and many small ones”. Emphasis added to both quotes.
Thanks for the link, which is helpful about the law itself, but it still makes it sound like the employers have a good eight months before they can logically blame Obamacare for layoffs or cutbacks.
I don’t know what problems you mean. If you lay off or cut back too many people, the solution to that problem is to hire them back, and I don’t see why it’s easier to either diagnose or solve such problems now than later. The link that puddleglum supplied shows that they are doing it about nine months before the deadline instead of the year+ I mistakenly thought in my OP, but IMO both time periods are sufficient that “last minute” has no place in this discussion.
Also, it’s evidently not a viable strategy, since the government is in fact implementing the websites and sign up six months before the deadline instead of waiting until the last minute, and it has received nothing but grief over the fact that everything didn’t work perfectly the first few days.