An Obamacare True Story

Small business owners around the country are already feeling the financial pain of Obamacare. Blue Cross is telling small business owners that their rates are going up big time. The reason? Obamacare. Here is a first-hand look, as explained at National Review.

To compute our new Obamacare-era rates, Blue Cross did not simply levy a higher rate across the board. Rather, it calculated a new rate for each and every employee, based individually on his or her age and family circumstances. The sheet showing this calculation may be found here. (I have blanked out the employees’ names for privacy.)

The size of the Obamacare-driven rate increase varies greatly from employee to employee, ranging from 15.1 percent at the low end to 103.1 percent at the high end. Despite the fact that my employees vary in age from 25 to 64, not a single one had his or her rate decrease.

The 38 percent increase in our health-insurance bill will represent an amount equal to 4 percent of the entire company payroll. Thus, on average, Obamacare will cost my employees an amount equal to a 4 percent raise, or require that the workforce be reduced by 4 percent, or some combination of the two.

Fewer jobs, at lower pay. That’s what Obamacare means. There is no reason to believe that the experience of my company is exceptional, and if it is not, then we could be looking at something like a 4 percent loss in American workers’ income, whether experienced as lost jobs or lost wages.