TheGreatGatsby
Gold Member
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- #21
A cumulative fair share contribution and a mandate to insure every employee are two different things.
The employer mandate in Massachusetts and the employer mandate in the ACA do differ, but you haven't described either one correctly.
In Massachusetts, employers with more than 10 employees paid a penalty if (1) they didn't have a certain percentage of their workers enrolled in a company plan, or (2) they weren't paying for a certain percentage of employees' premiums purchased on the employees' own.
Under the ACA, employers with more than 50 employees pay a penalty if (1) they don't make an offer of coverage to their employees (note: almost all employers of this size already do make such an offer), and (2) some of their employees are getting public subsidies in an exchange.
Of course, if you're one of those who (wrongly) believes that the ACA was designed such that there are no public subsidies in states with federally facilitated exchanges, then you also believe that the ACA's employer mandate was (1) a state prerogative, and (2) not applicable in most states today.
Furthermore, don't pretend that Obama is about the competition. Health costs have skyrocketed under him; and in the 08 debates he was clear about not wanting competition at the national level. Pretty damn hypocritical for a guy who wants to control health care at the national level, I'd say.
Health care cost growth since the ACA passed has been the lowest ever recorded in the United States. Across the board--health spending growth has slowed, health care price inflation has slowed, premium growth in group and non-group markets has slowed, the taxpayers have seen the price tags for the public health insurance programs slashed again and again.
Nothing like this, of this duration and scale, has ever happened before in American health care.
Health care spending [in 2013] grows at lowest-ever rate
Per Capita Medicare Spending is Actually Falling
Employee Health Insurance Costs Barely Increased This Year [2014]
O-Care premiums stable nationwide [going into 2015]
ACA coverage expansion costs lower than expected [in FY2014]
Just like conservatives predicted five years ago!
As for "national level" competition, by that are you saying you want to be flown to see an out-of-state doctor or go to an out-of-state hospital every time you have a medical issue? For most of the rest of us, health care is a pretty local thing.
Okay, yea not having a certain apparently loosely defined or undefined percentage insured versus calling an employee who works thirty hours a week and mandating insurance are two different things. And even then, Obama made his ass faced standards arbitrary by granting all his exemptions. I'm guessing that's what you're calling so-called subsidies, btw.