Remember all those claims that the Affordable Health Care Act (ACHA) – AKA “Obamacare” – was going to make your life easier by reducing the cost of your health care?\u00a0 I certainly do.<\/p>\n
Did you believe them?\u00a0 Well now – aren’t ye a wee bit auld to be a’ believin’ in Leprechauns, laddie<\/em>?<\/p>\n Early figures are out.\u00a0 Next year, health insurance costs aren’t<\/span> going down.\u00a0 Rather, they’re going up<\/span> in 2013 – by an average of 9%<\/a><\/span>.<\/p>\n Even Wal-Mart is raising their employees’ health coverage costs.\u00a0 But like Wal-Mart’s prices, their announced cost increases are substantially lower\u00a0 than average – around 4.4%.<\/p>\n Another thing to remember:\u00a0 under the ACHA, employers are only required to offer healthcare coverage for those working 30+ hours weekly. Given that fact – and the huge costs businesses already pay to subsidize employee healthcare – it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out what businesses will do when they need more staffing.<\/p>\n If and when the economy ever recovers, that is.\u00a0 Until that happens most businesses probably won’t need to add much staffing.<\/p>\n And if you think the government-run solution – AKA, that touted “single payer” healthcare system you keep hearing about – will be better, you might want to read this<\/a><\/span>.\u00a0 England’s got a long history with nationalized healthcare – one of the longest in the world, if not the longest.\u00a0 Their healthcare system\u00a0 has serious issues.\u00a0 The second linked article only highlights one such problem out of many.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"