The $187,500 Government Hit on My Business
I have suspected that this was coming, but I guess I have just buried my head in the sand, knowing that I would be taking a complete screwing and not wishing to contemplate it.
Sens. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., and Chris Dodd, D-Conn., say their plan would preserve employer-sponsored insurance coverage and create an affordable public option for those who need it....
The bill includes a "pay or play" provision that would require employers to provide adequate coverage for their workers or subsidize a system that will.
"Pay or play" would require companies to pay the government $750 per full-time worker per year ($375 for part-timers) if they don't offer health coverage, or if they offer "qualified" coverage but pay less than 60% of workers' premiums. Small businesses that employ fewer than 25 workers would be exempt. (Via Q&O)
I run a recreation business with about 500 part-time, seasonal employees. Most of them work for the equivilent of about 1/4 of a year, or about 500 hours. Almost all are over 70, and already on Medicare and Social Security, so we have no health plan (no way to get a reasonable plan anyway for a bunch of 70 year olds).
Adding up the numbers, this turns into $187,500 bill I would have to pay to the government for not providing health care to people who already mostly have health care. I will pay 1/2 the full time rate despite my employees working far less than 1/2 of the year.
One thing you can be sure of -- this may be the final death of my current human resources model. We typically hire more people, working fewer than 40 hours, because retired folks don't generally want to (or can't) work a full week. That's been OK, because 4 people working 10 hours a week has always cost me the same as 1 person working 40 hours. But if I am getting charged $375 per worker whether she/he works 1 hour or 1000, you can bet I am going to hire fewer workers for longer hours. There are probably a myriad of other implicaitons for my business model, I just have not yet thought it through.
