That explains it then

Perfectly good reason to pull up stakes and move across the Pond, I'd say

I know what my 'Post of the Year' is going to be in the polls

I was in a group of Republicans last night and the discussion got around to Manufacturing Jobs. I asked why you would want to manufacture in the US when you had a cost of $10,000 a year per employee to provide health benefits versus elsewhere where you did not.

I made up the number but it sounds about right.

They did all agree that it was a cost very few companies could afford. The one person around the table who had a reasonable number of employees does not provide benefits, no way could it be afforded.

There's no requirement for a business to provide health insurance. Starting in 2014 there is a $2k fine for businesses over 50 employees who don't.

I can see an awful lot of companies with 40 or so employees. If you want to go above that time to set up a new company.

And if you are a bit above that, lay off times and use more contractors.

Maybe. Otoh, the law provides subsidies for small businesses that provide insurance. And - and this is a biggie imo - many people are going to be more likely to form a small business when they know that they're not going to be up shit creek without a paddle if they give up employment with a larger company to form such a business and are at the mercy of the current individual market if they get sick. On balance, I can see the ACA actually providing something of a positive impact on small businesses as a whole. It's not as one-sided a negative picture as you like to paint.

Some discussion of this here:

http://www.slate.com/articles/busine..._business.html

Worse than that there are already companies, especially restaurants, that are cutting employees hours to make them part time and therefore ineligable for employer provided health insurance - so you don't get health insurance and they reduce your pay!

Starbucks?

You can bet that any low cost labour intensive business will be watching the rules.

They don't have to provide health insurance now and subsequent to 2014 they'll get subsidies to do so. So why would employers with less than 50 employees drop insurance? Even for employers with more than 50 employees, it would only make economic sense if the health benefits they currently provide cost less than the $2k fine, which buys you **** all in terms of health benefits anyway.

The problem with your analysis is that the $2k fine is for FULL TIME employees. Say you have 500 employees - you'd pay $1million fine for not providing health insurance, but if you reduce the hours of 400 of them, and add, say, 150 more part time, you'd only pay the fine on 100. OR, you could provide health insurance, but again only for 100, the part timers don't count, so employers save either way.
Now, why would they do that? I don't know (though I presume the bean counters say it reduces overall costs), all I know is I hear fairly frequently of another employer who is cutting hours to make more staff part time to reduce health insurance costs.
Anyway, wouldn't the $2k fine look attractive for employers paying MORE than $2k per employee? .. Which I think is what I heard Caterpillar is doing.

Because they can - smaller employers only do it to attract employees by competing with larger employers, and if larger employers drop it so will the smaller ones. You say iit couldn't happen? Look what happened to the company pension scheme! Once a few major employers dropped it, it soon became a rarity outside of government jobs .... in both Britain and the US.

And company cars

There is no.logic in companies being involved in the health care business.

Larger employers may or may not drop health insurance, but it won't be a direct result of the ACA: insurance costs way more than the fine for not providing it.

I'm all for the tie between employment and health insurance being broken. It's one of the biggest flaws of the current health care access system. And of course the ACA goes some way to levelling the playing field between employer-provided group insurance and individual policies:- another good thing about it.

The "fine" is currently $0. Why would they be more likely to drop insurance when the fine is larger?