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1. John R | February 23, 2013 at 8:37 am

   Flawed Obamacare causes underemployment and unemployment!

   The law requires firms with 50 or more full time workers to offer health plans to employees who work more than 30 hours a week. Employers with 50 or more employees and don’t offer insurance face a $2,000 penalty for each uncovered worker beyond 30 employees. So by hiring the 50th worker, the firm pays a penalty on the previous 20 as well.

   Thousands of employers will face a $40,000 penalty if they expand to the 50th worker. The law is effectively a $2,000 tax on each additional employee after that, so moving to 60 workers costs $60,000.

   Part time workers do not have to be offered health insurance. Businesses that hire low skilled workers are starting to put a limit on the work week of below 30 hours.

   The regulations kick in when a firm crosses the 50 worker threshold, employers are starting to cap payrolls at 49 full time workers. Others small businesses like Burger King will limit workers to just 29 hours a week.

   http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324616604578304072420873666.html?mod=hp_opinion

   Obamacare will lead to underemployment and unemployment, especially for the young and unskilled workers. Liberals just don’t understand that a business does not exist just to provide jobs.
2. BUD | February 23, 2013 at 8:54 am

   John R..the nation is just finding out and will begin to feel what is in this bureaucratic behemoth and its ripple effects. At a local community college, a nearly fulltime professor was told to drop teaching a course so he/she would not be considered in anyway a 30 hour/week employee of the school. The professor loses income, the students lose a potential course.

   We were told…you can keep your coverage, you can keep your doctor, your premiums will drop $2,500. Any of that true?
3. Scott M. | February 23, 2013 at 11:11 am

   @1 John R., that’s why we need universal, single-payer, tax funded healthcare in this nation.

   Some things simply do not belong in the market place.
4. Scott M. | February 23, 2013 at 12:21 pm

   The weekend question is “What good guys did you see lose this weekend?”

   Sadly, I must report the good people of the United States lost a little bit this week.

   I’m referring to a recent Supreme Court decision that effectively allows both random searches and racism so long as a police dog is involved. That’s because they’ve ruled police search dogs, so long as they’ve passed a training course, can be used as probable cause when they “alert”.

   This despite their terrible record.

   This also demonstrated at least one of the problems with drawing Supreme Court Justices from those with a strictly academic background. It’s also the reason Thurgood Marshall we so good. He’d actually been arrested and spent time in jail.

   See this link to Clever Hans for some background and then Ed Brayton’s posting.

   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clever_Hans

   http://freethoughtblogs.com/dispatches/2013/02/22/supreme-court-gets-it-wrong-on-drug-dogs/

   …For example, in a survey of drug dogs used by police departments in suburban Chicago published last year, the Chicago Tribune found that when a police dog alerted to the presence of drugs during a traffic stop, a subsequent search turned up narcotics just 44 percent of the time. In stops involving Hispanic drivers, the dogs’ success rate dropped to 27 percent.

   This raises some interesting questions: Why are drug dogs more likely to submit an innocent motorist to the indignity of a thorough roadside search if the motorist happens to be Hispanic? Are drug dogs racist? Do they racially profile? Of course not. But their handlers probably do……

   The results were striking. The dogs falsely alerted in 123 of the 144 total searches. Because some dogs falsely alerted more than once in the same search, the total number of false alerts was 225. The dogs correctly completed the search without an alert just 21 times, for a success rate of 14.5 percent.

   But here’s the more interesting part: The dogs were about twice as likely to falsely alert at the packages designed to trick their handlers than they were at the packages stuffed with sausages…..
5. Sandi Saunders | February 23, 2013 at 12:29 pm

   John R, did you have 50 employees? Did you offer health insurance to your employees? Are you aware of very many companies with near 50 employees who do not offer health insurance?
6. Name Withheld | February 24, 2013 at 9:26 am

   Erudition, courtesy of the Liberty Fund. No thanks.
7. John R | February 24, 2013 at 1:30 pm

   @#5 Sandi, A study of CA workers in 2009 found construction workers topped the list of those lacking health care insurance at 40%. Entertainment and leisure industries frequently do not provide health care. Businesses with high rates of employee turnover often do not provide health care plans.

   If a small business has a 3% or less profit margin, being forced to provide health care could put them out of business. I suspect there are a lot of small businesses in that category.
8. Scott M. | February 24, 2013 at 2:58 pm

   I know the RT staff can comment for themselves but haven’t yet so wanted to leave an explanatory note. A commenter left a link to a story at the Liberty Fund site. When I went there, my antivirus software said that was a trojan virus at the site. I provided evidence of this to the editors and suggested they remove that particular article. It’s now gone. Please don’t think it’s being removed as a form of censorship.
9. Sandi Saunders | February 24, 2013 at 3:08 pm

   Without seeing whatever “study” you reference, it is hard to have any opinion other than “so what”? Did those construction workers work for “Joe the plumber”? Were they self employed? If an employer is so small that they do not meet the 50 threshold, there is no penalty. If an employer has 50 full time employees, health insurance is a cost of doing business.

   The troubles came when the health insurance industry decided they preferred the “group” over the individual. Individual insurance was almost always affordable for people (not necessarily families). That ended when they figured people opted out of the work offered group policy and saved money getting insurance on their own. They changed the application to ask if you were eligible for insurance through your employer and if you told the truth, you could not get the individual coverage.

   IMO, health insurance should no more be tied to employment than your car or home-owner insurance. The tax incentives and the advantage it gives management has kept the status quo and now they are whining? No sympathy here.
10. Christina Nuckols | February 24, 2013 at 4:16 pm

    Yes, I removed it to avoid spreading a virus. Thanks.
11. Name Withheld | February 24, 2013 at 6:17 pm

    I’m glad I had the sense to find out what “libertylawsite” was before downloading something from there. Hence my #6.
12. Jim Lucas | February 24, 2013 at 6:30 pm

    I would be curious to know if anyone else had such an indication as to the site in question.

    I have 4 different antivirus systems. Have experienced no such depiction.

    I will be entirely honest….I do not question Scott’s representation. I do not question Ms. Nuckols concern, or actions.

    I do wonder about the reaction vis-a-vis the problem as perceived….and would very much appreciate knowing the essence/meat of the concern.

    If for no other reason than my own system’s security.

    Thanks.
13. Jim Lucas | February 24, 2013 at 6:58 pm

    #11 NW! You’re right! You (apparently) never read the article, but knew (innate? intuitive? That erudite…by osomosis?…quality I requested?)…..the site is evil.

    Dr. Johnson, Fordham University….and I, were attempting to sabotage the computers of anomynous bloggers.

    Thanks to your instincts the jig is up.
14. Scott M. | February 24, 2013 at 9:12 pm

    Jim, I use AVG antivirus which alerted me. They also have a service online where you can input an URL. It was that link I sent to the editors. You can probably Google it. I don’t have the link handy.
15. Name Withheld | February 24, 2013 at 10:15 pm

    Nobody’s accusing Jim of anything. The reason I decided not to waste my time with “libertylawsite” is precisely because I could NOT find on that site’s home page or on their “about” page that indicated any institutional affiliation that I would consider legitimate. The only affiliation listed was “Liberty Fund” and I don’t know what that is. Any association the site might have with Fordham University is not obvious to me. The word “Fordham” does not appear on their home page.