I hate to pour cold water on the whole discussion, but the employer mandate was delayed for a year. Remember? So anybody saying that any company actions in the near future (before January 1,2015) are political posturing and not a reaction to the ACA. Feel better now?
But I do have a couple of comments on the discussion. First it's a good thing that we are separating health care from employment. Both businesses and workers will be better off because of the separation. Second, a lot of American workers have gotten a good glimpse of how their employers really feel about them, and I hope the feelings are reciprocated.
Companies were proactive and took action before the delay, and they aren't going to roll it back now. Unfortunately for employees, it's an employers market, and they get to be the choosy ones. Employees are often desperate in the current job market, and stuck taking whatever they can get...often jumping through hoops to get even minimum wage jobs. My girlfriend's son had to fill out a 250 questionnaire just to get an interview at Boston Market.
I'm sure that employers planning on laying off workers or cutting hours will blame it on whatever political axe they have to grind. That does not make it so. No one has produced a shred of evidence that this alleged phenomena is occurring and there is a pretty good reason to suspect that it is all bogus claptrap. The economy is slowing and the probability of sharp recession is increasing rapidly, so businesses should be cutting back. But I would be quicker to attribute that to the effects of a government shutdown Tuesday moe readily than a law change taking effect in 15 months.
Exactly why did all of these employers wait two years to take this action after the ACA became law, and then initiate it four months after the employer mandate delay was announced? And where is the employment effect of this movement in the labor statistics of the last two years if employers are so far seeing? The timing gives the lie to these representations.