Published: Friday, January 4, 2013, 12:01 a.m.
Health care
New law forces bad choices
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The new year finds us with U6 unemployment figure at just over 14 percent and the start of a new $2,000 Obamacare fine for not covering full-time employees. Employers with 50 or more workers must now provide health insurance to full-time employees working over 30 hours a week, or pay this fine.
An employer faced with the choice of perhaps a $8,000 cost per year for health insurance versus a certain $2,000 fine per employee seems compelled to choose the latter.
The other employer option is to convert as many full-time jobs as possible to part time. Every 40 hour a week job converted 20 hours would create two positions. This is not the kind of job creation that we need. It would lower the unemployment rate, but would further obscure the true depth of unemployment in this hope and change economy.
Gerald N. Yorioka, M.D.
Mill Creek
An employer faced with the choice of perhaps a $8,000 cost per year for health insurance versus a certain $2,000 fine per employee seems compelled to choose the latter.
The other employer option is to convert as many full-time jobs as possible to part time. Every 40 hour a week job converted 20 hours would create two positions. This is not the kind of job creation that we need. It would lower the unemployment rate, but would further obscure the true depth of unemployment in this hope and change economy.
Gerald N. Yorioka, M.D.
Mill Creek
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