Reuters reports today:
If U.S. health reform efforts lead to higher costs for employers, employees may end up bearing the brunt, according to a new survey.
Employers will not absorb higher costs, choosing instead either to reduce benefits, lower salaries or cut jobs, the survey from professional services firm Towers Perrin said on Thursday.
Eighty-seven percent of employers said they were very likely or likely to cut benefits if reform leads to higher costs. Only 11 percent said they would accept lower profits.
This study confirms what conservatives have been saying about Obamacare from the beginning: If you mandate coverage on employers or add taxes to the coverage the offer, it simply comes out of the hide of employees.
All five bills in Congress (three in the House and two in the Senate) contain employer mandates or “pay or play” provisions which require employers to offer health insurance to their employees or pay a tax/fiine to the federal government. Even the left is beginning to recognize that these provisions are job/economy killers and are calling the Baucus “free rider” and other tax provisions the MaxTax.
As we have detailed before:
Congressional advocates of the latest health care reform proposal claim that it will not cost ordinary Americans more–the costs will be borne by “the rich” and by employers. After all, both the House and the Senate versions require employers who do not provide health benefits to pay higher taxes.
But the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) recently reported what economists have long known: Regardless of who is formally required to pay, the burden of these taxes and costs will ultimately fall primarily on employees through lower wages. An employer mandate does not give workers without health insurance something for nothing but rather forces them to purchase it out of their wages whether they like it or not–and no matter how low those wages are. Congressional rhetoric to the contrary, much of the burden of paying for an employer mandate will fall on ordinary Americans, and lower-income workers will be hit the hardest.
