I know people who's hours are being cut to 29 per week as that is the maximum they can work before their employer has to provide them with insurance, iirc. I know a guy who is trying to go from an hourly wage for 40 hours per week to a salaried position at 29 hours per week for whatever pay it has to be to equal what he makes at his current wage over 40 hours. Then he'll put in the same amount of time for the same pay, but it'll look like he's only working 29 hours and his employer won't have to pay for his insurance (they're telling him that they can't afford it and are looking at options).
This sort of thing has been happening for a long time - since long before "Obamacare" was even the original Republican healthcare reform plan.
Even within a company that offers health insurance, very often they manipulate the hours of certain classes of employees to ensure that they never quite cross the threshold to be eligible for those benefits. It happened to me and all of my coworkers when I worked retail - you had to be management to cross the magic 32-hour-week barrier and receive any sort of benefits.
Some businesses are now being forced to offer healthcare where they weren't before, and now they're playing the same game that their bigger cousins have been playing for decades.
Others are just doing what they've always done, but they'll blame Obamacare this time around because it's an easy scapegoat.
My cousin is starting up a business. He bought a steel building that has to be built. The company that sold him the building said they would charge him $44,000 to construct it. He shopped around for other prices, including some unions. The cost the unions bid was $66,000 - $77,000. He told me that there's no way he could afford that much. Now, our other friend who works for the union is telling him to be careful because if the union finds out that he goes non-union, then they'll probably picket his new business. The town it's in has a lot of union workers and that could really ruin his business.
We asked: "Well, can't he just build it himself?" Isn't a man allowed to build his own building on his own property without the union bullying him? They said that that would probably be okay. Then I said, well what if I helped him out for free? We're family. Can't a guy and his family build a building? Hmm, probably still okay. (Geez, I can't believe we have to get permission for this). We went further: what if we have a non-family friend that helps for free. "Hmm, that's probably pushing it, they said".
That's just retardiculous, in my arrogant opinion.
Why, CS, that's just free market capitalism and the freedom of speech at work! Do you hate freedom?!
But seriously, the better working conditions and benefits negotiated by unions
do add cost to whatever project. Obviously. Paying for a dental plan costs more than not paying for a dental plan. And unions don't "bully," they merely exercise their right to free speech - there's absolutely nothing wrong with a bunch of guys showing up at a non-union shop and letting the public know that Business X doesn't support unions. It's not like the unions are going to beat customers or employees with baseball bats if they cross the picket line - that would land the union guys in jail. They'll just walk around making some noise and waving signs that tell customers and employees "this guy didn't use a union to build his building, and we union members don't like that because it threatens to weaken our position in bargaining for better working conditions."
You buddy isn't
entitled to get to build a building or start a business. If he doesn't have the cash, he doesn't have the cash, same as me or anyone else. In this case he could go non-union, and he has the freedom to make that choice, just as the union guys have the freedom to choose to picket him.
But look - this is what I see going on from my perspective. You're bringing up individual anecdotes representing what you see as flaws in the ACA.
We know the ACA is flawed. We know it's not perfect. Most of us who think it's a "good thing" really just think it's significantly better than what we
had before, not as good as we could (and should) have done.
I'd much rather see single-payer, something like Medicare for all. It'd be super simple - just lower the Medicare eligibility age to 0, and organize the new funding and staffing requirements with a few years buildup time to supplement the existing infrastructure. Make sure that Medicare is allowed to bargain for pricing with care providers and pharmaceutical companies. Allow private insurance in excess of what Medicare covers. Done deal - you could probably write a law for something like that in less than 20 pages, even in legalese - as I recall, Canada's version only took 14 pages. No tax penalties, no health exchanges.
But pointing out anecdotal examples of negative outcomes, even where accurate (because some of what you've posted is
not actually due to the ACA), is not actually a strong argument against the ACA.
The ACA
will result in millions of Americans getting healthcare when they did not have it before.
The ACA
does mean that plans with inadequate coverage will be replaced by better plans, improving the care available to the people who had the old plans.
The ACA
does mean that the most vulnerable people, the poor, the unemployed, and those with pre-existing conditions, will have better access to healthcare services than they have ever had before. For someone with a pre-existing condition, the ACA will
literally save their life in many cases.
I'd take having my hours reduced at work over letting someone die because they couldn't afford the health insurance and the pills that would have prevented their illness from progressing to a terminal stage. Please remember, I used to be very close to someone with HIV, I've been in my local AIDS clinic many, many times - believe me, the ACA is a literal life-saver just for that one provision alone.
The ACA, like any other policy change, needs to be looked at in its totality. You cannot focus exclusively on the good or the bad - you have to consider the total net outcomes, and see whether the total balance comes out ahead of or behind where we were before.
I think the ACA is an improvement, a step in the right direction, taken as a whole on a preliminary basis. I'd still much, MUCH rather see Medicare for all. But your anecdotes haven't really been particularly persuasive.
The human understanding when it has once adopted an opinion (either as being the received opinion or as being agreeable to itself) draws all things else to support and agree with it. - Francis Bacon
"There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs." - John Rogers
A world that can be explained even with bad reasons is a familiar world. But, on the other hand, in a universe suddenly divested of illusions and lights, man feels an alien, a stranger. His exile is without remedy since he is deprived of the memory of a lost home or the hope of a promised land. This divorce between man and his life, the actor and his setting, is properly the feeling of absurdity. — Albert Camus
"...the pious hope that by combining numerous little turds of variously tainted data, one can obtain a valuable result; but in fact, the outcome is merely a larger than average pile of shit." - Barash, David 1995...
"Many that live deserve death. And some die that deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then be not too eager to deal out death in the name of justice, fearing for your own safety. Even the wise cannot see all ends." - Gandalf, J. R. R. Tolkien: The Lord Of the Rings
Nihil supernum
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