You thought the last four year were disastrous?

Wait until Obamacare hits. It’s already forcing companies to cut jobs and hours.



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It’s now clear that Obamacare is already forcing businesses to cut employees and employee hours in order to comply to the law.

Thank you Democrats.

The National Review has more on Obamacare’s jo-killing mandate.

American manufacturers are already struggling to recover, never mind expand. In that context, the Obama health law’s employer mandate proves especially counterproductive.

The Census Bureau doesn’t calculate how many manufacturing firms are near the 50-employee threshold. But its numbers do show that the majority of them are small enough that the employer mandate may be a significant problem. Of America’s total 258,662 manufacturing companies, 197,701 had fewer than 20 employees in 2010, around the time when hiring growth picked up. Another 46,005 had between 20 and 99 employees.

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And it doesn’t matter that most manufacturers already provide health care: The National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) estimates that 97 percent of its members already do so. Employers’ plans must cover at least 60 percent of employees’ average health expenses, and workers can’t contribute more than 9.5 percent of their family income, or the fees kick in anyway. That $2,000-per-employee penalty falls on top of the stiff taxes, trade barriers, and environmental limitations that manufacturers already have to contend with.

“The employer mandate is part of the overall negative business climate that manufacturers have been facing,” NAM spokesman Matt Lavoie observes. “It’s 20 percent more expensive to manufacture something in the United States than in our major trading partners, and that’s before you add in labor costs.”

As the Obama administration has argued, the employer mandate is one of the critical components of the health-care law. But too little consideration has been given to its consequences. The employer mandate is already having an adverse effect on the growth of U.S. companies and U.S. employment. Many existing businesses will scale down or avoid expansion. Meanwhile, would-be entrepreneurs may observe Schanstra, Murphy, and other business owners as a cautionary tale, realizing the risks they incur may not yield the payoffs they expect.