Follow along with the video below to see how to install our site as a web app on your home screen.
Note: This feature currently requires accessing the site using the built-in Safari browser.
Yes, it spends money. It kicks about a million people off of their employer-based health insurance.
How does their bill kick people off their employer policy?
Good lord. Let me explain the rationale for this GOP legislation to you. Under the ACA, employers of a certain size have to make an offer of insurance coverage to full-time employees. Insomuch as there's a distinction between "part-time" and "full-time" employees, that means there's a threshold: employees above that threshold need to be offered coverage, employees below it do not. The ACA establishes that threshold at 30 hours of work a week.
The existence of such a threshold will affect employer behavior. There will be a temptation to lower the hours of workers who are hovering around that threshold, to take them out of the equation when it comes to dealing with the employer mandate.
Clear so far?
The GOP wants to look like it's at least trying to do something about this. The obvious thing to do if you believe a threshold introduced by the law is changing employer behavior would be to remove the threshold. But for whatever reason, the GOP is not proposing to do that. Instead, they're proposing to move the threshold. From 30 hours to 40 hours a week.
But insofar as that threshold represents a perverse incentive, it affects workers near the threshold. If the requirement is 30 hours, then someone working say 31-35 hours may find themselves shifted below 30 hours. You're not likely to see people going all the way from 40 hours a week to 29, the 30-hour threshold affects those whose hours are closer to it--as a result, the evidence suggests the threshold has affected the hours of a few hundred thousand people. In other words, right now the number of workers impacted by the threshold isn't really all that high.
Shifting the threshold from 30 hours to 40 hours means you shift the folks it affects (i.e., those near the threshold). And a lot, lot more people work near the 40 hour threshold than the 30 hour threshold. So whatever perverse incentive is built into having a threshold will be amplified if you apply it to a much larger group of workers, as the GOP's bill does.
If you agree with the premise of the bill that there's a problem here of workers near the threshold being shifted below it to deny them access to their employer's insurance coverage, then it should be fairly obvious that subjecting more workers to the effects of that threshold makes the problem worse, not better. Which is the case here. More people will be shifted below the threshold under the GOP bill (and thus out of their employer-based coverage) for the simple reason that more people's hours hover around 40 hours than 30 hours.
The ones who don't just become uninsured as a result are picked up by government-subsidized programs.Sounds like the government-subsidized programs are spending the $50 billion.
...yeah. Because the GOP's bill would have the effect of shifting more people into those programs.
Their "solution" doesn't match the problem they've diagnosed. That's the crux of the problem here. And it's why the costs of this bill far outweigh whatever benefits they're claiming are attached to it (which, again, I don't think they've even bothered to articulate).
That said, the GOP bill has at least been useful for illustrating why the ACA made the full-time threshold 30 hours instead of 40--it mutes the impact, and lessens the perverse incentive inherent in introducing such a threshold. In other words, 30 hours is better policy than 40 hours and the GOP is showing us why.
Not raging - RAVING!LLMMAAOOOO libs raging about the deficit and then whine about not spending more on shovel rdy jobs.........
RAGING is what wingnuts did from 2009-2013. They've since shut up about it, to not attract attention to Obama's success.
RAVING is what the Left is doing about Obama lowering the deficit by 2/3!
Wait, employers react negatively to a tax increase? Don't tell the liberals, it'll destroy their worldview.
Wait, employers react negatively to a tax increase? Don't tell the liberals, it'll destroy their worldview.
I don't know, based on your posts above you seem pretty confused about this concept and I doubt you self-identify as a liberal.
But assuming you do get it, the problems with the GOP's bill should be becoming pretty obvious.
BTW the drive to get rid of medical device tax is being led by prominent libs who were for it before they were against it.....alrdy Medtronic has offshored the corp hdqtrs
That's why President Obama (praise be unto Him!) introduced his Jobs Bill in 2011.The time for a jobs bill is at the bottom of the cycle, not 5 years after the bottom.
I have not brought up the debt in this thread.
You brought up the deficit.
I have not brought up the debt in this thread.
You brought up the deficit.
You don't know the difference between the deficit and the debt?
Why am I wasting my time with you, dope?
Last chance for you, Todd - make it retard-free.
At least by half. So why are you trying to deflect, with the debt?You don't know the difference between the deficit and the debt?
I do. I also know you keep saying Obama cut the deficit in half.
At least by half. So why are you trying to deflect, with the debt?You don't know the difference between the deficit and the debt?
I do. I also know you keep saying Obama cut the deficit in half.
At least by half. So why are you trying to deflect, with the debt?You don't know the difference between the deficit and the debt?
I do. I also know you keep saying Obama cut the deficit in half.
At least by half.
Yeah, that was wicked awesome! How'd he do it?
At least by half. So why are you trying to deflect, with the debt?You don't know the difference between the deficit and the debt?
I do. I also know you keep saying Obama cut the deficit in half.
At least by half.
Yeah, that was wicked awesome! How'd he do it?
Budget Control Act of 2011
that would explain this:We're really supposed to believe that you care about the deficit? You voted twice for a president that has overseen a $7 trillion plus increase in the national debt since taking office. He's surpassed Bush.
Republicans Just Relaunched Their War on Obamacare. It Didn’t Go Well.
Now that Republicans are in control of both chambers of Congress, the push to slay Obamacare by a thousand cuts is officially underway. But if the first stab is any indication, Republicans are going to need some sharper knives.
*snip*
For starters, there is the basic problem that President Obama has made clear that he’ll veto the 40-hour measure. If he does, Republicans could still seek to use the proposal as a cudgel to attack the law politically, but even here there are problems. The Congressional Budget Office has given the measure a decidedly unfavorable review. It estimates that the bill would result in as many as 1 million workers having their hours cut to put them under the new 40-hour limit and thereby losing their employer coverage; about 500,000 workers being left without any health coverage at all; and the deficit increasing by more than $50 billion as a result of fewer employers paying the $3,000 fine, as well as more people turning to Medicaid and federal subsidies to purchase their own insurance after being denied employer coverage.
We're really supposed to believe that you care about the deficit? You voted twice for a president that has overseen a $7 trillion plus increase in the national debt since taking office. He's surpassed Bush.
At least by half. So why are you trying to deflect, with the debt?You don't know the difference between the deficit and the debt?
I do. I also know you keep saying Obama cut the deficit in half.
At least by half.
Yeah, that was wicked awesome! How'd he do it?
Budget Control Act of 2011
2011? But Republicans already controlled the House in 2011.
Where is the jobs bills?
Why do we need a jobs bill, 5 years into a recovery?
You always need jobs and business to grow the tax base....Where is the jobs bills?
Why do we need a jobs bill, 5 years into a recovery?
The time for a jobs bill is at the bottom of the cycle, not 5 years after the bottom.
The cheap way to create jobs would be to eliminate idiotic regulations.
Obama would never agree.
Yes, it spends money. It kicks about a million people off of their employer-based health insurance.
How does their bill kick people off their employer policy?
Good lord. Let me explain the rationale for this GOP legislation to you. Under the ACA, employers of a certain size have to make an offer of insurance coverage to full-time employees. Insomuch as there's a distinction between "part-time" and "full-time" employees, that means there's a threshold: employees above that threshold need to be offered coverage, employees below it do not. The ACA establishes that threshold at 30 hours of work a week.
The existence of such a threshold will affect employer behavior. There will be a temptation to lower the hours of workers who are hovering around that threshold, to take them out of the equation when it comes to dealing with the employer mandate.
Clear so far?
The GOP wants to look like it's at least trying to do something about this. The obvious thing to do if you believe a threshold introduced by the law is changing employer behavior would be to remove the threshold. But for whatever reason, the GOP is not proposing to do that. Instead, they're proposing to move the threshold. From 30 hours to 40 hours a week.
But insofar as that threshold represents a perverse incentive, it affects workers near the threshold. If the requirement is 30 hours, then someone working say 31-35 hours may find themselves shifted below 30 hours. You're not likely to see people going all the way from 40 hours a week to 29, the 30-hour threshold affects those whose hours are closer to it--as a result, the evidence suggests the threshold has affected the hours of a few hundred thousand people. In other words, right now the number of workers impacted by the threshold isn't really all that high.
Shifting the threshold from 30 hours to 40 hours means you shift the folks it affects (i.e., those near the threshold). And a lot, lot more people work near the 40 hour threshold than the 30 hour threshold. So whatever perverse incentive is built into having a threshold will be amplified if you apply it to a much larger group of workers, as the GOP's bill does.
If you agree with the premise of the bill that there's a problem here of workers near the threshold being shifted below it to deny them access to their employer's insurance coverage, then it should be fairly obvious that subjecting more workers to the effects of that threshold makes the problem worse, not better. Which is the case here. More people will be shifted below the threshold under the GOP bill (and thus out of their employer-based coverage) for the simple reason that more people's hours hover around 40 hours than 30 hours.
The ones who don't just become uninsured as a result are picked up by government-subsidized programs.Sounds like the government-subsidized programs are spending the $50 billion.
...yeah. Because the GOP's bill would have the effect of shifting more people into those programs.
Their "solution" doesn't match the problem they've diagnosed. That's the crux of the problem here. And it's why the costs of this bill far outweigh whatever benefits they're claiming are attached to it (which, again, I don't think they've even bothered to articulate).
That said, the GOP bill has at least been useful for illustrating why the ACA made the full-time threshold 30 hours instead of 40--it mutes the impact, and lessens the perverse incentive inherent in introducing such a threshold. In other words, 30 hours is better policy than 40 hours and the GOP is showing us why.
The existence of such a threshold will affect employer behavior. There will be a temptation to lower the hours of workers who are hovering around that threshold, to take them out of the equation when it comes to dealing with the employer mandate.
Wait, employers react negatively to a tax increase? Don't tell the liberals, it'll destroy their worldview.
