That was one of his points: There are no good reasons to be against the Act. I can't really judge if that is true, but basically, the idea that it is absolutely right to try to get as many people as possible insured is pretty powerful. And most of the opposition one noted was on the level of "that is socialism!" (which it isnt, and socialism isn't bad).
There are lot's of good reasons to be against the Act. How about it forcing the young and relatively poor to subsidize the old and relatively rich -- it's a giant intergenerational wealth transfer mechanism.
Young adults will pay higher premiums under Obamacare because of its age rating system. The law stipulates that the maximum variation allowed in adult premiums is a cost ratio of 3 to 1. But as Heritage research shows, “The natural variation by age in medical costs is about 5 to 1—meaning that the oldest group of (non-Medicare) adults normally consumes about five times as much medical care as the youngest group.” Obamacare’s “rate compression” causes insurers to charge artificially low premiums for older adults and higher premiums for younger adults. Moreover, “Actuaries estimate that the effect will be to increase premiums for those ages 18–24 by 45 percent and those ages 25–29 by 35 percent while decreasing premiums for those ages 55–59 by 12 percent and those ages 60–64 by 13 percent.”
There are many americans working at medical device companies that will be affected by the 2.3% medical device tax. Zimmer, for example, cited the medical device tax as the reason for firing a thousand workers a few years ago.
I don't know that case. Normally, such claims are a lie (using an opportunity to reorganise the company to exploit the workers more) and it seems highly unlikely that 2,3% on anything could lead to that. So the margin before was that thin that the tax lead to thousand workers being more expensive than productive? That is highly unlikey, especially with medical device companies.
And besides, it doesn't invalidate the ethical point that it is right to privide medical insurance, even if true.
To clarify: it is an excise tax and applies to the _gross sale price_, not the profits (so even if the division runs at a loss, they still have to pay). http://www.irs.gov/uac/Medical-Device-Excise-Tax:-Frequently... I'd agree with your skepticism if it were affecting net (after employee salaries etc).
> And besides, it doesn't invalidate the ethical point that it is right to privide medical insurance, even if true.
Your original point was "There are no good reasons to be against the Act", so my response was pointing to a reason why someone would be against the act: I'm pretty sure that being laid off due to a regulation is a pretty good reason to be unhappy
> To clarify: it is an excise tax and applies to the _gross sale price_, not the profits (so even if the division runs at a loss, they still have to pay). http://www.irs.gov/uac/Medical-Device-Excise-Tax:-Frequently.... I'd agree with your skepticism if it were affecting net (after employee salaries etc)
AKA a sales tax. Which don't generally lead to broad-scale layoffs when they're imposed. Did California have massive layoffs when they raised their tax on everything in the entire economy in January? How about when Canada introduced a brand new 7% across the board sales tax in 1991?
As a business, the standard way of responding to that kind of tax is to raise your prices correspondingly (to an appropriate level set by your supply/demand curves of course).
