US Politics Mega-thread - Page 400

On August 28 2013 02:28 JonnyBNoHo wrote:

Less important =/= unimportant. Just because there are more important provisions to the ACA doesn't take away from the fact that other, also important, provisions have been delayed / watered down.

On August 28 2013 02:29 xDaunt wrote:

So what exactly are you arguing? That Obamacare is a good thing? Or that it will eventually lead to a good thing? Those are two very distinct concepts. Also, it's no secret that a comparatively disproportionate portion of those who are employed are only working part time, and that a very significant reason for that is that employers are trying to duck the healthcare mandate.

On August 28 2013 03:06 TheOneWhoKnocks wrote:
By the way, does anyone find it a bit ironic that Obama is about to bomb a middle eastern country without UN approval because of WMD's?

On August 28 2013 03:55 kwizach wrote:

Are you seriously trying to equate Syria and Iraq? And the U.S. actions towards both?

On August 28 2013 03:53 kwizach wrote:

I'm pretty sure DoubeReed wasn't arguing that the employer mandate was in no way important, but rather that it wasn't important with regards to the rest of the ACA bill like the individual mandate is.


Let's be clear here, are you suggesting that if you look at the part-time workforce in the U.S., a "significant" (what is your definition of "significant"?) portion of these part-time jobs are part-time because of the ACA? Because the data does not support this at all:

+ Show Spoiler +

Source.

Policymakers are still recovering from yesterday’s shocking admission by the Administration that it can’t implement Obamacare’s employer mandate without destroying jobs.

The announced one-year delay in enforcement brings with it an immediate revenue loss. But by further encouraging firms to drop coverage now—allowing businesses to privatize gains and socialize losses—the change could cause federal spending on Obamacare exchange subsidies to soar.

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimated in May that the employer mandate would raise $10 billion in revenue in its first year. (Because the employer mandate is a tax penalty, firms will pay the penalties the following year—penalties for 2014 will be paid in 2015; penalties for 2015 will be paid in 2016, etc.) That $10 billion in employer mandate revenue projected for fiscal year 2015 will almost certainly disappear.

Then there’s the separate question of whether, when, and how employers will drop their health insurance plans and dump their workers on the exchanges. Here’s what we know on that front:
•In its most recent economic forecasts in February, the CBO estimated that unemployment would average 7.8 percent in 2014. That number is nearly three percentage points higher than the CBO’s estimate of 2014 unemployment at the time of Obamacare’s passage. Because unemployment will be higher than the CBO first projected when Obamacare passed, firms will have more incentive to drop health insurance now, while labor markets are more competitive and workers have fewer employment options.
•The CBO now projects that, if firms do drop health coverage, insurance subsidies on exchanges will average $5,290 per enrollee next year. By comparison, shortly after Obamacare passed, the CBO projected subsidies would average $3,970 in 2014. In other words, the projected average subsidy for 2014 has grown by one-third since the law passed.
•As we documented last week, since Obamacare’s enactment, the CBO has increased the number of projected uninsured and decreased the number of individuals projected to retain their employer coverage.

Over the past several years, numerous studies, papers, briefs, reports, employer questionnaires, consultant presentations, surveys, op-eds, interviews, quotes, and comments from Democrats suggest that employers will drop coverage in significant numbers, resulting in trillions of dollars of added federal costs. Even Jon Stewart, in an interview with Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius last year, would not believe that employers would keep offering coverage:


Is the penalty more than the [cost of] insurance?… Is there a consequence other than a fine or shame—cause I know the shame thing’s not gonna work.

Instead of facing a decision to pay more than $10,000 for a worker’s insurance policy or pay a $2,000 per-employee penalty, employers next year will now be able to raise their workers’ wages to compensate them for the loss of their health plans. And the cost of that choice—which some would argue is so obvious as to not be a choice—could result in skyrocketing federal spending.

On August 28 2013 02:29 xDaunt wrote:
[...] it's no secret that a comparatively disproportionate portion of those who are employed are only working part time, and that a very significant reason for that is that employers are trying to duck the healthcare mandate.

On August 28 2013 04:28 kwizach wrote:
The graphs "don't show anything"? Here's what you wrote:


The two graphs I presented you with clearly show that your statement is completely false, unless by "a very significant reason for that" you meant "the potential reason for a very small percentage of that amount".

Also, nice source of yours - even your heritage foundation blog only provides speculation and not actual data to back up its claim. Regardless, there is a difference between having an small negative impact on employment and being a "very significant reason" for the high levels of part-time employment in the US, like you originally claimed.

Overall unemployment stayed steady in June at 7.6%. The economy reportedly created 195,000 jobs in the month. But. The quality of the jobs created is not good.

In June, the household survey reported that part-time jobs soared by 360,000 to 28,059,000 – an all time record high. Full time jobs? Down 240,000. And looking back at the entire year, so far in 2013, just 130K Full-Time Jobs have been added, offset by a whopping 557K Part-Time jobs. And there is your jobs “quality” leading to today’s market euphoria (if only for now).

This is the ObamaCare effect. Obama’s health care law incentivizes employers to drop workers to below 30 hours per week in order to avoid incurring liabilities or fines. Or, if the employer is near the 50 employee mark, to trim down to below 50 to escape ObamaCare altogether.

Factor in the fact that the rate of participation in the job market remains at a historic low, and the economy remains weak. McJobs won’t power a full recovery.

On August 28 2013 04:41 legor wrote:
Graphs 30 years into the past till 2012 don't show anything relevant for this discussion.

On August 28 2013 04:41 xDaunt wrote:

Okay, have it your way. Let's ignore what congress is doing. Let's ignore the pleas from the employers. Let's ignore the CBO reports. We can just stick our head in the sand because the adverse impact hasn't been sufficiently quantified to your liking.

On August 28 2013 04:59 kwizach wrote:

They do, and you'd know that if you had paid attention to the claim I was replying to.


You're the one who made a claim that went way beyond looking at the actual effects of the ACA on employment. Nobody's ignoring the CBO reports - you're the one who's ignoring the reality of the overwhelming majority of part-time jobs in the U.S. having absolutely nothing to do with the ACA. You tried to sneak in a ridiculous hyperbole into your attack of the ACA, and you've been called out on it.

On August 28 2013 02:57 xDaunt wrote:
Oh, and lest we forget, congress all-too-happy to exempt itself from Obamacare. It doesn't take a genius to figure out why.

On August 28 2013 03:00 farvacola wrote:
Yeah, because no one in Congress has ever had a problem getting health insurance.

On August 28 2013 05:15 xDaunt wrote:

This is why I used to ignore your posts. You aren't arguing anything meaningful. All of your responses to my original post can be distilled to "I disagree with xDaunt's use of the term 'significant.'" Arguing semantics is a bore. There's no hyperbole in what I said. In fact, what I said shouldn't even be controversial.

On August 28 2013 05:21 kwizach wrote:

I'm arguing what you said. If you want to debate the impact on employment of the ACA, by all means, go ahead. If you're going to claim, as you did, that "it's no secret that a comparatively disproportionate portion of those who are employed are only working part time, and that a very significant reason for that is that employers are trying to duck the healthcare mandate" (emphasis mine), then don't expect people not to notice that you just said something that is blatantly false in order to paint the ACA as negatively as you can.

On August 28 2013 03:58 Catch]22 wrote:


Its mind-boggling that people try to do this very equation. It sickens me that anyone would compare the stable Iraq, and the questionability of the US entering Iraq to the Syrian civil war and its 100k+ casualties.

On August 28 2013 05:21 kwizach wrote:

I'm arguing what you said. If you want to debate the impact on employment of the ACA, by all means, go ahead. If you're going to claim, as you did, that "it's no secret that a comparatively disproportionate portion of those who are employed are only working part time, and that a very significant reason for that is that employers are trying to duck the healthcare mandate" (emphasis mine), then don't expect people not to notice that you just said something that is blatantly false in order to paint the ACA as negatively as you can.

edit: in fact, sam!zdat addressed this even before I did, when he wrote in his reply to you "romneycare at worst somewhat exacerbates an already very serious trend towards precarious employment which has been underway for 30 years and will continue into the foreseeable future".

On August 28 2013 03:00 farvacola wrote:
Yeah, because no one in Congress has ever had a problem getting health insurance.