With the recent debauchary of a bill that was passed, known as "health care reform" the world will be forever changed provided that it in itself is
not repealed or changed dramatically. One part of the bill, I believe, will trully ruin this country as we are not really quiet yet out of the
recession as. And even if we are, the year 2014 will put us into a major, major depression, provided we are not there allready.
That being said, the major change that is coming with the passage of the health care bill in 2014 is that large companies (companies with at
least 50 employees) will either have to A) pay for their employees health care or B) pay a fine (the following link says $2k but I have another at the
office where it says $3k which ill post later, either way, its a heafty fine per employee).
www.accountingweb.com...
This thread and the following questions are really directed at the people that wanted this health care bill. How will we, as Americans, afford
this? If you not business savy, I'll draw up a little senario using my company as an example.
I have about 100 employees currently, so we will just use 100 to keep the math simple. Also, to keep it simple we will say that the health care
bill says I only have to pay for my employees health care and not their families as well so we will use the single employee coverage rate as the base
of this senario. Also, we will say that the premiums will stay with the current trend that we have seen in that they will go up 25% per year. I know
im prolly in dreamland right now with those numbers and premium projections, but stay with me on this and you can also double check my math if you
want.
Right now, my single employee coverage rate is at $80 per week. This is a decent plan with decent coverage and manageable co-pays and a $2500
deductable. At the above rate and employee base, the single employee coverage rate will be $195.31. This will mean that my company will have to come
up with $19,531 a week to cover our overhead. That is $253,903 a quarter or $1,015,612 a year extra that we will have to MAKE in order to just cover
our new overhead. This is an impossibility as we work in consturction, re-roofing to be exact. So basically, if its not raining, im not getting paid
so to speak. So that all being said, lets look at the real options my company has in order to survive this, and yes, we will survive it but it wont
be pretty.
1) We raise our prices. This will only work in the short term if we have an extremely loyal customer base and for some reason a hurricane rips off
the roofs of all the houses on the west coast of Florida (God forbid). Short of a major natural disaster happening, this wont work in the long run.
Our competitors will either do a option 4 or just one or two of the following.
2) We lay people off. I know, I know, you big softy liberals. The big company is just going to push people out the door so they dont have to pay
for health care. Just remember, we really cant afford it and if we lay off a bunch of people, that might keep the doors open. But this is also a
short term fix. We are one of the larger companies that are still around. After the recession many, many companies had to close their doors and lay
off hundreds of people. We were one of the lucky few that stayed with it. Its a short term because we need people to work because we get a decent
amount of jobs to do and we cant just spread the workload of 100 people around to 50 people, it just wont work.
3) We cut peoples wages...again. This is one of the ways we survived the recession, we had to tighten our belts. If we cut our employees wages
though, I personally know a couple of people that will be foreclosed on due to this. I dont want to see this happen, but we cant afford not to. But
this is also just a short term fix since most likely we will loose good workers to competitors (if there will be any willing to actually hire people
at this point since they will also have to pay for their health care) and make our business go down in tubes.
4) We do a mix of laying people off, cutting their wages, and raising our prices. This is the most likely senario seeing that our suppliers will
have to raise their prices along with the actuall manufacturers do to the new health care reform bill and because #e runs down hill. Not only will
our overhead go up due directly to us having to pay the insurance but also because the products we use will be increased in price along the way down
to us.
Even if we go the other route as in not paying for the health care for our employees and instead pay the fine, we will still have to do option
number 4, but to a slighter degree. But just think for a second, we are just a smaller company. Imagine going to the store after January 1, 2014 and
buying milk that tripled in price over night because the companies that manufacture the milk, deliver it, wholesale it to your local supermarket, and
even your local supermarket will all have to increase their prices along the way in order to help pay for this exponential raise in overhead that will
effect every aspect of their business and their overhead that they currently have. When I say the price of milk will thriple, I'm being conservative
if you think about it. #es gonna go thru the roof.
Now, even if we go by the way of paying the fines and doing a small #4, the people that work for us who allready cant afford the insurance option
we have now will definately not be able to afford it in 2014 as the price will have gone up. Also, they dont qualify for assisstance because they
make to much and even if they do, its only a small subsidy and its now LAW that YOU MUST HAVE INSURANCE or be fined and eventually put in jail.
After I just layed out a small, small portion of the bill, please tell me how long we are going to last. I see an enormous socio-economic
upheval coming our way by just this small part of the bill. If every company starts laying people off and cutting wages, who will buy their goods
that have now increased in price? Its a physical impossibility that this bill will not ruin us as a people. Unemployment, poverty and the gap
between the rich and poor will rise all the while the middle class will become extinct. Welcome to health care reform my friends. Pray that it gets
repealed. Soon btw.