Elections Have Consequences, #1 - Obamacare's Job Destruction Impacts

This is a first an occasion series that will follow the mantra, “Elections have consequences.” Yes, the elections are over and the winners will soon take office. But the impacts from the elections did not end on November 6, they will continue, disappear, accelerate, grow, etc. for years to come.

Unfortunately, our election processes have deteriorated so much that it seems the means have become the ends. Getting elected is now the end game, not the necessary first step to getting problems resolved. Voters who voted for winners are smug, losers are bitter, problems never get resolved. The purpose of this series of posts is to remind all voters, but especially those who voted for politicians who won their elections, that elections have consequences.

Today’s topic is focused on Obamacare. If the Republicans had had a better set of election results, we may have actually seen the repeal of Obamacare and had some degree of hope that it would be replaced with a plan that actually had a chance at working. Numerous times we have pointed out the many, many faults and shortcomings of Obamacare and how it has virtually no chance of success because it never addressed the root causes of our escalating health care costs:

http://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2012/08/obama-care-still-constitutional-and.html

But repeal is likely not going to happen, given the election results and election results have consequences. What are those consequences relative to job creation/destruction and Obamacare? Consider:

1) The Freedom Works website has put together an excellent article:

 (http://www.freedomworks.org/blog/grusbf5/good-morning-america-heres-those-layoffs-you-voted)

that documents the many, many companies that have had to assess their financial future in light of Obamacare taxes and regulations and have regretfully decided that they need to reduce their staffs’ sizes and hours. Their findings include the following labor cutbacks, just days after the election results were tallied:

• Welch Allyn, a company that produces medical diagnostic equipment in its central New York location, announced that they would be laying off 275 employees, which is 10% of their workforce over the next three years. One of the major reasons discussed for the layoffs was a proactive response to the Medical Device Tax mandated by Obamacare.
• As recently as a week ago, a global auto parts manufacturing company in Ohio known as Dana Holding Corp., warned their employees of potential layoffs, citing "$24 million over the next six years in additional U.S. health care expenses." After laying off several white collar staffers, company sources have indicated more layoffs will be forthcoming. The company will have to cover the additional $24 million cost somehow, and labor cost is likely one of the only ways to do so. Thus, Obamacare will likely equate to numerous cuts in their current workforce of 25,500 worldwide.
• One of the biggest medical device manufacturers in the world, Stryker, will close their manufacturing facility in Orchard Park, New York, eliminating 96 jobs in December. Worse, as a result of Obamacare’s medical device tax, Stryker will likely slash another 5% of their workforce or about 1,170 positions.
• In October of 2009, Boston Scientific CEO Ray Elliott, warned that Obamacare could "lead to significant job losses" for his company. Two years later, Elliott announced that the company would be slashing anywhere between 1,200 and 1,400 jobs. They simultaneously announced they would be shifting investments and workers overseas, to China, likely to try to reduce costs to overcome Obamacare taxes.
• In March of 2010, medical device maker Medtronic warned that Obamacare taxes could result in the loss of 1,000 jobs. That prediction came true when the company cut 500 positions over the past summer and with another 500 layoffs set for the end of 2013.

Just these five companies have had to cut or will likely cut at least 3,700 jobs as a result of Obamacare burdens.

2) Other job losses cited in the article include:

• Smith & Nephew - 770 layoffs
• Abbott Labs - 700 layoffs
• Covidien - 595 layoffs
• Kinetic Concepts - 427 layoffs
• St. Jude Medical - 300 layoffs
• Hill Rom - 200 layoffs.

These additional cuts total about 3,000 jobs.

3) But the complete termination of jobs is only part of the consequences from the election. Obamacare rules insanely have defined full time workers as anyone working over 30 hours a week, not the traditional forty hours a week

Thus, the complete loss of a job position is not the only negative consequence of the election. Sean Hackbarth of Free Enterprise explains this situation in the Freedom Works article, as analyzed by a JP Morgan economist:

"Under the health care law, if a company has more than 50 “full time equivalent” workers, a combination of full and part-time employees, but doesn’t offer “affordable” coverage that meets the government’s minimum value standard, the company will have to pay a penalty. This penalty is determined by the number of full-time employees minus 30 full-time employees. So to reiterate a very important point: part-time workers are not part of the penalty formula. The health care law creates a perverse incentive to hire part-time versus full-time workers."

Although many people will still have a job, their take home pay will likely decrease by about 25% or so as a result of Obamacare. This will increase the number of part time workers far beyond the 8.3 million part time workers already in the workforce.

4) These new additions to the part time workforce likely include the employees of the following companies:

• According to the Orlando Sentinel, Darden restaurants, best known for their Red Lobster, Olive Garden and LongHorn Steakhouse restaurants, is "experimenting with limiting the hours of some of its workers to avoid health care requirements under the Affordable Care Act when they take effect in 2014".
• The CEO of JANCOA, a janitorial services company, Mary Miller, testified before Congress that Obamacare is a career "dream killer,” testifying that one option she had to consider "is reducing the majority of my team members to part-time employment in order to reduce the amount that I will be penalized" under Obamacare’s rules, taxes, and regulations.
• Krogers supermarkets of Cincinnati, Ohio recently was reported to be planning a significant slashing of their hourly workers to avoid millions in Obamacare taxes and financial penalties. The article estimates that Obamacare could result in tens of thousands of Kroger employees being limited to working 28 hours per week.

This is unlikely to be the final list of jobs terminated or shortened by Obamacare’s poorly thought out rules, regulations, and strategies. In fact, we will review other cuts tomorrow. These impacts are on real people in real families trying to improve their lives, a process that has been made immeasurably harder as a result of the consequences from last week’s elections.

All of these casualties caused by legislation that the Congressional Budget Office estimates will fall at least 20 million people short of its overarching objective of providing health care insurance for every American within ten years. All of these casualties caused by legislation that never addressed the root causes of our high health care costs and will never attain its primary goal.

Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at www.loathemygovernment.com. It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please pass our message of freedom onward. Let your friends and family know about our websites and blogs, ask your library to carry the book, and respect freedom for both yourselves and others everyday.
Please visit the following sites for freedom:

http://www.reason.com/
http://www.cato.org/
http://www.robertringer.com/
http://realpolichick.blogspot.com/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w