Vol. 77/No. 30      August 19, 2013

The legislation is “very much a compromise dictated by the perceived political need to change existing coverage and challenge entrenched interests as little as possible,” summarized New York Times columnist Paul Krugman, a supporter of the plan.

The aim by many of the program’s liberal authors and backers was to take a step toward something resembling a single-payer health-care system without cutting too deep into the capitalists’ surplus extracted from our labor. And the plan compels everyone to come under the framework of a new government bureaucratic apparatus that will funnel even greater profits to the health insurance giants, which were both eager to make “suggestions” on the law to help ram through its passage in 2010.

The law provides incentives for many employers to offer some basic insurance. The millions who aren’t “covered” by their boss will be forced to purchase their own insurance policies or pay fines. The program will subsidize plans for those with the lowest incomes. By 2016 the tax penalty will rise to 2.5 percent of household income, at least $695 and as much as $2,085 per family.

Seeking to avoid fines, many bosses are offering “bare-bones” plans, notes the Wall Street Journal, which “cover minimal requirements such as preventive services, but often little more. Some of the plans wouldn’t cover surgery, X-rays or prenatal care,” or hospital stays.

Obamacare is based on insurance companies raking in profits from millions of healthy people who are today uninsured. The White House says this will keep down prices for the sick, elderly and infirm. “Young, healthy adults today spend an average of $854 a year on health care,” stated the Wall Street Journal, pointing to comments made by Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito during hearings on the Affordable Care Act last year. “ObamaCare would require them to buy insurance policies expected to cost roughly $5,800.”

One of the law’s provisions is already hitting many workers hard. Under Obamacare bosses do not have to provide any coverage for those working less than 30 hours a week.

As one of the inevitable consequences, bosses have been reducing work hours for current employees and hiring mostly part-time and temporary help. In June, for example, full-time jobs declined by 240,000, while part-time jobs soared 360,000. Since the recession began at the end of 2007, there are now 3 million more part-time positions.

While the Obama administration recently postponed until 2015 fining employers with 50 or more workers who do not provide some health coverage for full-time employees, fines on individual workers without insurance take effect in January 2014.

For employees in workplaces where past union struggles have won higher quality health plans, Obamacare is adding pressure on employers to cut them back. Starting in 2018 a so-called Cadillac tax is slated to penalize employers for providing comprehensive health care plans to their workers. Bosses are wasting no time in cutting these plans, including through raising deductibles and co-payments.

The act considers employer-sponsored insurance “affordable” if workers pay out-of-pocket 9.5 percent or less of their household income. Above that amount individuals can file paperwork to apply for subsidies and tax credits. But for family coverage each worker would have to pay thousands of dollars more.

Many of the Affordable Care Act’s provisions “are inconsistent with the promise that those who were satisfied with their employer-sponsored coverage could keep it,” Kinsey Robinson, president of the United Union of Roofers, Waterproofers and Allied Workers, told the media. He backed the act’s passage and is now calling for its repeal, as is the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers. The United Food and Commercial Workers, Teamsters and UNITE HERE, have also protested aspects of Obamacare in recent months.  
 
 
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