By Olivia Hinkle
Currently, America is going through some major changes when it comes to healthcare. Starting this winter, Obamacare is said to make it easier for millions of Americans without health insurance to receive it. Although this may be the case for some Americans, Obamacare also has several downfalls that many people seem to be looking past. With this new healthcare plan, workers are going to figure that if it is so easy to receive Obamacare, they won’t need to be concerned with changing jobs and leaving the workforce while worrying about losing their access to health insurance.
Obamacare has the potential to decrease the amount of people in the workforce which could severely hurt the economy. As the Congressional Budget Office noted in a report months before Obamacare had been passed, “Increasing the availability of health insurance that is not related to employment could lead more people to retire before age 65 or choose not to work at younger ages.” Workers stay in bad jobs for fear of losing insurance, and with the new insurance plan, workers will no longer have this worry which will lead them to leave where they are currently employed. As stated on businessinsider.com, “freed from the search for health insurance, people might do better and more productive work. Economists call the current phenomenon “job lock”. People decline to take more appropriate job opportunities or start their own businesses because they do not wish to lose their current health coverage. “
The cost of the Affordable Care Act- this cost will become most apparent when it begins to reduce middle and low-income families wages, as well as an increase in income tax. Although Obama promised not to raise taxes on families making less than $250,000 per year, these taxes are surely to break the promise. According to useconomy.com, “Taxes will be raised in 2013 on one million individuals on incomes exceeding $200,000 and four million couples filing jointly on incomes exceeding $250,000. They would pay a total of 2.35% (up from 1.45%) Medicare taxes on income above the threshold. They will also pay an additional 3.8% Medicare taxes.”
In the video below, Frank Newport shares that 50% of Americans would like to see Congress scaled back or repeal the Affordable Care Act, compared to the 38% that would like to see Congress either expand or keep the Affordable Care Act as it is.
Video:
With all of the tax increases, American’s will be spending more money on tax, and less money on anything else that could potentially help to improve our economy. Overall, Obamacare’s negatives seem to highly outweigh the positives. The tax hikes are surely to slow economic growth, reduce overall employment and suppress wages.
"LIVE: Apple Reveals New iPads."Business Insider. N.p., n.d. Web. 22 Oct. 2013. <http://www.businessinsider.
"Americans More Likely to Feel Negative Than Positive Toward the Affordable Care Act." Americans More Likely to Feel Negative Than Positive Toward the Affordable Care Act. N.p., n.d. Web. 22 Oct. 2013. <http://www.gallup.com/video/
Olivia, I'd never thought of this! It's fascinating to think that people might just quit their jobs once they've secured healthcare insurance outside of getting it from an employer. How's that for an unexpected negative (for firms) externality?
ReplyDeleteWith people anticipating to quit their jobs once they get healthcare is one of the worries that I had. I knew there was going to be something that was different about Obamacare and all of its qualities but I didn't expect people to take advantage of it so severely as predicted. The loss of jobs because of the automatic health insurance will not be good for the future of the economy because it will just increase the unemployment rate, put less money back into the economy and possibly lead to something bigger than an economic shutdown or even a government shutdown. You make some really strong points that otherwise would have been pushed aside and never thought of. Nice work.
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ReplyDeleteI completely agree with you! This Obama care is no good. There's going to be so many people quitting their jobs because of Obama Care, everyone will depend on the insurance. There's a thousand other things wrong with Obama Care, it's harder to register on the internet. It's a good thing people will have insurance but the insurance is going to tremendously increase effecting everyone. There's going to be a lot of people changing their doctors, they can't keep their current one. There'll be higher deductibles. This is going to severely effect our economy just like everything else is that the government is doing.
ReplyDeleteIf what is being assumed is true--that Obamacare would cause less people to work until the age of 65, diminishing the workforce--then I know from finance class that social security would lose funding. This would present even more economic dilemmas besides what you mentioned, as the older population of the nation would be deprived of the money that many of them currently are dependent upon to stay above the poverty level. Nice article, Olivia!
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