Imagine you are a small business owner deciding whether to hire two new employees, your 50th and 51st workers respectively. Would you hire them knowing that, by surpassing the magic number 50, you will now be obligated under Obamacare to pay a penalty unless you offer all your employees affordable healthcare insurance?
Imagine you are owner of a large business, with a significant part-time workforce. It is the busy season and you need more labor. Would you increase the work hours of your current part-time employees, past 30 hours a week, knowing that you will now be obligated under Obamacare to provide them with affordable health insurance? Or would you hire new, less experienced workers and forgo those costs?
These are a couple of the decisions businesses are forced to make as they come to grips with their new obligations under the Affordable Care Act (the ACA).
Did it have to be this way? Did the ACA have to draw such sharp lines, between 29 and 30 hours per week and between 49 and 50 employees? Or could these artificial dichotomies have been avoided while preserving the goal of increasing the number of employers who offer people affordable health insurance? …(Read more and view comments at Forbes)
