The full force of ObamaCare’s malignant employer mandate will harm small businesses in 2016.
Already delayed twice, the diktat, in force this month, expands to include businesses with 50 or more employees, requiring owners to provide health care to at least 95 percent of their workers and their dependents (up to age 26) or pay stiff fines.
Even the liberal Urban Institute criticizes the economically injurious rule: “Eliminating it will remove labor market distortions that have troubled employer groups and which would harm some workers.”
More than a jobs killer, the mandate is a disincentive for companies to expand beyond the 50-worker limit. And because ObamaCare defines “full time” as 30 or more hours per week, expect businesses this year to cut employee hours.
Punishing regulations and higher insurance costs will have a ripple effect across the economy, writes Pacific Research Institute scholar Sally Pipes. The upshot is an unhealthful job prognosis for people already struggling to find full-time work in an economy where more than 6 million people are working part-time jobs involuntarily.
That’s because ObamaCare is a metastasizing illness for which repeal in 2017 is the only cure.
