The Health Care Law a "Job killer?" The Evidence Falls Short

politiFact

PolitiFact rates this claim as pants-on-fire false.

An except, covering only one aspect of the attack on the bill. Read the entire link for a full analysis:

We first turned to the Congressional Budget Office report. The CBO is a nonpartisan agency that provides economic analyses to members of Congress on how legislation will impact the federal budget and the economy as a whole. In August 2010, it published a new outlook that considered the jobs impact of the new health care law.

The Republican report is right that the CBO has determined that the law will reduce "the amount of labor used in the economy," but the GOP report leaves out many important qualifiers. The CBO report actually says:

"The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates that the legislation, on net, will reduce the amount of labor used in the economy by a small amount—roughly half a percent—primarily by reducing the amount of labor that workers choose to supply. That net effect reflects changes in incentives in the labor market that operate in both directions: Some provisions of the legislation will discourage people from working more hours or entering the workforce, and other provisions will encourage them to work more. Moreover, many people will be unaffected by those provisions and will face the same incentives regarding work as they do under current law."

Basically, the CBO is saying that some people right now are working mostly to keep their health insurance. Once they have other options -- to enroll in Medicaid, or to qualify for tax breaks to buy insurance from a health exchange -- they might choose to work less. The CBO describes this as a "small segment" of the population. And, because the CBO is describing reduced hours rather than lost jobs, it never uses the 650,000 number that the Republican document cites. The Republican extrapolated that number from the CBO's estimate of one-half percent of the labor supply. Finally, we should point out that a person who voluntarily chooses to work less is not having their job "killed" by federal legislation.

At a time when hundred of thousands are laid off and unable to afford health insurance, why would we want to put health care back under the control of profit-driven insurance companies? We have already had health care controlled by "free market" capitalism for hundreds of years. All we have gotten for that is ever-rising medical costs and skyrocketing insurance premiums that many can no longer afford. We have gotten millions of people uninsured because of pre-existing conditions. Why would we want to go back to that ?

reply to post by Sestias


Yes...by "Job Killing" they mean a reduction in supply...not demand.

The analysis predicts that older folks who are working just so they have sufficient healthcare will consider actual retirement when they can obtain healthcare at reasonable rates or if Medicare is expanded so it sufficiently covers them without the excessive prescription costs..."Donut-hole" etc.

In short..."Older workers retiring and working less hours"

Or as Jon Stewart put it..."It is job killing...in the sense that getting more sleep at night is awake killing"

I can't speak in regards to how its supposed to balance out between those working less and others working more.

I can, however, speak of personal experience. A family member of mine who works for a health care facility was recently concerned about losing her job. They had a meeting and were told that because of the new Health Care Law, they would be laying off some people. In the end, my relative kept their position, but about 1/3 of the workers were laid of. The number of patients under their care remained the same. So fewer people to care for the same number of patients equals lower quality of patient care.

So, job-killing? Yes. Does it improve the care for those at the facility already under care? No.

There may have been some good ideas in the Law, many of which the GOP wants. However, there are too many things that are no beneficial, cost effective, good for workers or patients, and flat out unconstitutional.

The bill will add over 2 trillion to the deficit.

At the end, hear what a real business is going to do.

Originally posted by Wolf321
A family member of mine who works for a health care facility was recently concerned about losing her job. They had a meeting and were told that because of the new Health Care Law, they would be laying off some people. In the end, my relative kept their position, but about 1/3 of the workers were laid of. The number of patients under their care remained the same. So fewer people to care for the same number of patients equals lower quality of patient care.

From someone who works in a field related to Human Resources across multiple corporations I can tell you this...when it comes to layoffs...Executives BS more than any other time. They desperately look to scapegoat and absent a clear, detailed and supported explanation as to why HCR would cost those jobs, I assume BS.

I know of at least a dozen companies...very well...where they stumbled due to management incompetence and had to lay off folks last year..and every single one of them blathered on about the economic downturn being the reason for the layoffs...all the while thier competitors were hiring and expanding! I can easily point to the poorly thought out iniatives rolled out by execs in those companies that began prior to the economic downturn that cost the jobs.But when Sh*& hits the fan and they have to lay folks off...Sorry..it's the economy.

Just silly BS by executives that are grateful they have a scapegoat.

I don't know for sure this was the case with your example, but if I was your family member I would have sat in that meeting, looked my boss square in the face while holding a pen and paper and said...please explain to me specifically, in detail, how the New Healthcare Law is causing this layoff at our company...And I'd bet dollars to donuts that you would see the man sweat buckets.

No execs every conduct a layoff and say...well, the management team made some bad decisions...and we talked it over and none of us want to take a pay cut even if it is our fault...so we are going to layoff some of you hard working folks...thanks for understanding!

reply to post by Wolf321


I second maybereal's post.

It is usual for businesses to cut out all employees who are in any way extraneous, and pay their employees as little as they can get away with, as this cuts down on overhead and increases profits. They, of course, don't want to admit this because it makes them appear greedy.

In these hard times, many, many businesses have had to lay off employees because these companies are not getting as much consumer demand as they used to and so don't need the extra workers. This doesn't have anything to do with providing health care for all Americans.

In fact, health care reform will bring much government money to health care providers who will now be treating the formerly uninsured (that includes millions) who formerly just didn't get the care they needed as they could not afford it out of pocket, as well as those who will receive more care than they would otherwise because of subsidies. This should add additional workers to nursing staffs especially. Then, of course, the government will need additional workers to administer these reforms.These are just a few examples.

It's true that in recent years many hospitals have been laying off clerical workers because the use of electronic records requires fewer people to collect and store them. This, again, has nothing at all to do with health care reform.

Some people just want to blame Obama for absolutely everything that goes wrong in their lives or in this country.

The new health care law, Obama care, is a good idea, but it has some serious flaws in it. No where in the constitution of the United States, does it state that the population be forced to purchase anything. And, as the federal government can not keep its answers straight, it is not a law to be trusted at all. At first it was stated it is not a tax, but in court, one of the arguments is that it is a tax. They state that it will cost 2 trillion dollars and be deficit neutral, yet fail to mention on how it will be that. Common sense, and basic accounting principle states that if you spend 2 trillion dollars, you have to have 2 trillion coming in, to break even. It neither makes provisions for such or accounts for such. The speed at which it was passed, combined with the size of the bill, and the way the Democrats treated everyone, including their own party members was embarrassing to the country at large. It was not a political process, it was a circus and when people dared to speak out against it, they were slandered, at best, some suffered physical violence at worse. Those in charge of the congress, ignored the very people they were suppose to represent. Now most people can read, and a few can read very fast, but to ask congressmen and women to read that bill in a short amount of time and vote on it, was just plain stupid.
And ultimately the real shame of it all is, that failing to have health care will result in a large number of people being treated as felons, if they have a job and do not have health insurance. It would be the IRS that would determine if a person has the correct amount of health insurance or not, and if a person does not, then they can be fined, failure to pay up, would result in a fine, and possible jail time, if not a felony conviction on their record. Imagine that, a person, who is working a full time job with no health insurance, loosing the right to vote, own a fire arm, and get another job, all for failing to have health insurance.
It promised to improve it, however, why was it that when companies who spoke out against this law, the Obamacare, that 6 of the largest companies, which stated that they were going to take a lose of millions, if not billions combined, were summoned to appear before a committee in congress, and have to lay off people to cover the cost of the new mandated healthcare bill? These were companies that employed people right here in the US.
To add insult to injury, it did not address the rising cost of medical, and the one thing that it promised to do, which was that health insurance costs would not rise, funny how they all rose across the country. It did not encourage competition, which would have lowered the health cost, it raised them.
In this bill, there are items that have no bearing on health care is in it, and should not have been. They stated that it would not fund abortion, yet in the bill, according to the way it is written, it will fund abortion. In short we the people were duped into believing that this would fix a mess, to which if it stands, will only get worse. The federal government has never been able to handle money, and the estimates, that it came out with, even the CBO stated after it was passed, fell way short. We have given the next few generations a spiraling debt.
That and if it stands or makes it through the courts, no one, not one person in the United States will see anything of it till 2014, and then only a few will bennifit what everyone will be paying for.

reply to post by sdcigarpig

The rationale for mandating that everyone carry health insurance is that it will create a larger risk pool and ultimately bring down the prices of each individual policy. Several advanced nations, like Japan, have done this already and it works well for them.

Another reason for mandating insurance for everyone is that it is already costing us who do pay for it a considerable amount of money. Already there are millions who just use the health care services and don't pay for them. For every uninsured person who doesn't pay, the cost is passed along to those of us who are insured and/or pay out of pocket. That's one reason why hospital costs are going up so rapidly. If there were no individual mandate then these people, and possibly many others, would continue to take advantage of the government and the system.

In addition, I believe that Medicaid is going to be expanded and there will be other government-sponsored subsidies for those who simply cannot afford insurance.

While I do believe that the name of the bill that the GOP choose is a bit silly and ridiculous there are provisions within the Affordable Health Care Act that will indeed impact business negatively.

The 1099 provision will require businesses to file a 1099 to those they pay $600 or more in purchases of goods or merchandise in a year. That means the small business owner, restocking their inventory several times a year will potentially be saddled with more time towards compliance than actually conducting their business. The potential here in reduction in jobs would be that the small business owner would have to hire or pay more for a tax accountant to handle the extra paperwork. This could negatively impact their workforce, lower wages or raise prices to meet that additional and extraneousness expense. In addition, for every 1099 they file with the IRS, they have to send a copy to the vendor they conducted business with.

The bill name was symbolic, yet stupid.

I don't know about nationally, but I do know that 22 jobs will not be created this summer because of this health care bill. The potential extra cost to my husband's employer made him scrap plans to expand the company, and expand the workforce. (to much is unknown about the true costs to the businesses & several I know are very nervous) It may only have been 22 jobs, but I bet the 22 people who would of been hired would think differently.

The only logical reason why the term "job killing" is even in the title as it will force companies to spend more to insure its labour force and will use this as an excuse to not hire all while trying to claim bankruptcy or economical hardships jus to garner some twisted sympathy. Munchausen byproxy personified.