Here's an article with some of the "cons" about mandated health care insurance!
The Case Against Mandated Employer-Provided Employee Health
Insurance
Mandated employer-provided health insurance comes in three principal flavors:
* a pure mandate, requiring an employer to provide and pay a fixed percentage of an employee’s health insurance premium;
* a mandate requiring an employer to provide and pay a fixed percentage of
payroll for employee health insurance (with some mechanism to transform
unequal per capita premium payments into equal per capita policy benefits); and
* a mandate requiring an employer to provide employee health insurance or pay a tax, the so-called “pay-or-play” option.
The three are essentially the same in their effects on employers and employees as are the arguments against them, allowing discussion of only the
first as representative of three, given it is the simplest and cleanest.
Here are some of the arguments against this employer mandated health insurance from this article, ...
The Three Basic Arguments
There are three primary arguments against the imposition of mandated employer-paid healthinsurance: the policy is highly regressive as
(1) the uninsured, typically though not always low income, eventually pay for their own health insurance through job loss, depressed wages and
erosion of other benefits; (2) the policy is inefficient because it is too blunt to distinguish between those needing and those not needing
assistance to purchase health insurance; and, it is unfair to small employers and employees because (3) the policy fails to address the real
problems of the insurance market for small businesses, while retaining rigidities that injure both, and substituting a hefty, direct penalty on
them, i.e., a tax, in large part because they are small and lack market power. Other arguments, such as driving off-budget massive public
expenditures by laundering them through the private sector, are also valid,
The elimination of jobs is not the only option available in response to compensation increases caused by mandated employee health benefits. Employers
can change jobs. Reducing employee hours is possible. For example, reducing a $10 per hour sales clerk’s hours from 40 to 37½ a week offsets
some of the employer’s increased compensation cost, but also reduces the employee’s pre-tax wages by $25 a week or almost 10 percent, and cuts
government tax revenues. A variant is to transform as many full-time jobs as possible into part-time jobs to escape the mandate.
Okay, let's look at argument #1 above, there is a lot more in the link provided as an argument on this one, but this really sums it up, ...
Small employers have several possible employment-related adjustments available which they can impose individually or in combination with
others. The most prominent is that one or more jobs will be eliminated. It is not even necessary to lay off anyone to reduce employment
levels; attrition will accomplish the task and virtually no one but the Bureau of Labor Statistics will notice. Machines become a more attractive
alternative under a mandate. Think computers to replace graphic designers or voice answering machines to replace receptionists. Or, products
and services produced outside the United States substituting for domestically-produced ones.
The elimination of jobs is not the only option available in response to compensation increases caused by mandated employee health benefits. Employers
can change jobs. Reducing employee hours is possible. For example, reducing a $10 per hour sales clerk’s hours from 40 to 37½ a week offsets
some of the employer’s increased compensation cost, but also reduces the employee’s pre-tax wages by $25 a week or almost 10 percent, and cuts
government tax revenues. A variant is to transform as many full-time jobs as possible into part-time jobs to escape the mandate.
And so, onto the 2nd argument, to sum it up, ...
Inefficient Policy
Mandated employer-paid employee health insurance is at best a blunt policy instrument used to address the problem of a specific group, one that
affects a multi-dimensional 15 percent of the population, all with their personal preferences, individual needs and aspirations. The result is an
inefficient policy, a policy unable to match appropriate means and ends, to distinguish between those who need help and those who do not, and
to minimize the inherent inequities in any redistribution scheme.
Employer mandates subsidize some who have no reason to be subsidized, from the public let alone an employer, and provide every uninsured
employee the same employer-paid subsidy regardless of their financial condition.
******SKIP******
Health insurance is a lump-sum benefit; the covered employee obtains a fixed benefit regardless of hours worked. The lump-sum
nature of health insurance leads to another efficiency problem with mandated employer-provided health insurance, part-time employees. If part-time
employees are not covered by the mandate, a huge incentive arises for employers to hire part timers because two part-timers will be $4,971 a year
cheaper than one full- timer. Employees have similar incentives because insurance mandates do not raise (effectively, do not reduce) their
take-home pay. “The low insurance coverage among the poorest families stems partly from the fact that most uninsured work part-time and thus are
not covered by most employer mandates” [14, p.15]. There is also evidence that excluding part-timers from mandates artificially increases the
proportion of part-timers in the work force
And the articles 3rd argument, ...
Fairness
A disingenuous argument in support of an employer mandate is that employers who do not provide employee health insurance compete
unfairly; they transfer their employees’ health care costs to those offering insurance because uncompensated care raises costs to all who pay
for health care, insured or not; therefore, those who provide health insurance to their employees subsidize irresponsible employers who do not.
The argument obfuscates wages and compensation, and simply ignores the fact that all small employers compensate their employees for work
performed. Some compensate their employees entirely in wages, other than compulsory taxes, and some compensate them in various combinations of
wages and benefits. Those not compensated in part through the offer of health insurance can choose to use the wages portion of the ir compensation
to purchase health insurance or not. Their choice depends on the relative value they place on health insurance, discounted by the tax subsidy
provided. But since the money is theirs, the choice is theirs.
I feel that the government mandating employers to pay for their employees health insurance is just not the answer to the health care problem in this
country.
The government should be looking into why the cost of health is soooo high and should be looking into ways to lower them, thus lowering insurance
premiums and allowing individuals to be able buy their own health insurance
instead of putting the burden onto small businesses which are economically challenged anyway at this time!
And here's some tid-bits from other articles!
The Government's Role in the Health Insurance Industry
Laws which force employers to provide workers with health insurance, in addition to increasing unemployment, amount to blatant
interference in transactions between consenting parties.
Employer Health Insurance Mandates and the Risk of Unemployment
Employer health insurance mandates form the basis of many health care reform proposals. Proponents make the case that they will increase insurance,
while opponents raise the concern that low-wage workers will see offsetting reductions in their wages and that in the presence of minimum wage laws
some of the lowest wage workers will become unemployed. We construct an estimate of the number of workers whose wages are so close to the
minimum wage that they cannot be lowered to absorb the cost of health insurance, using detailed data on wages, health insurance, and demographics
from the Current Population Survey. We find that 33 percent of uninsured workers earn within $3 of the minimum wage, putting them at risk of
unemployment if their employers were required to offer insurance.
This just doesn't seem to me to be the answer, that is mandated employer health insurance, especially since our unemployment rate is the highest it
has been in
OVER 20 years, ...
Unemployment Rate Highest Since 1983
The U.S. economy cut 345,000 jobs last month alone. The count of total jobs lost in the current economic recession is 6 million. The unemployment
rate, at 9.4 percent in May, has risen to the highest level since 1983.
And our present economy already has small businesses struggling!
Fed's Economic Forecast Worsens
Rich Yamarone, director of economic research at Argus Research, said that the Fed's new forecasts were "more of a reality check than a revision,"
given the deterioration in the labor market and overall economy since January.
This is not a good time to place more of a burden on small businesses
[edit on 6/8/2009 by Keyhole]
FANTASTIC!!! Why am I not surprised. The first health care bill (obamas) going through states that everything will be paid for by taxing
all money used to pay for health insurance. (taxing both employees and employers.) 
