Can anyone send me some good links on the impact of obamacare on 1/13?

kcisthebombdotcom

I know, clearly I'm living under a rock and it's sad I even have to ask.

I was blindsided at work yesterday with some sobbing coworkers who were informed all employees were cut to 28 hours or less effective immediately since companies now get fined if they offer more than 28 hours a week to people and don't offer benefits. Apparently many other local businesses are following suit and are cutting everyone to part time and just hiring more people. 

Someone else was mentioning all the hidden sh!t they snuck in there, like the new taxes you pay to the government when you sell your house for profit. I was wondering what other implications for people/businesses were included in the bill and it seems like the site on it just has the fluff bs on it.

NastyAnnie

I believe the selling your house for a profit thing is a capital gains tax, right? The richest 2% of Americans benefit from 50% of capital gains tax reductions. It's designed to effect them, not so much the middle class. How many regular people do you know that are selling their homes at a profit right now? 

 

As for the workforce reduction, that's unfortunate. The ACA is designed to protect employees from predatory employers and insurance companies. This company is apparently just going to keep abusing their workforce.

bumpuser260585

That really sucks kc. Sorry your company won't just offer health benefits.
To answer NA's question, dh and I are going to put our house on the market this spring. The comps on our street that just sold indicate that we will be able to sell for 60k plus over what we paid 7years ago. We are a middle class family, so yes, this will effect real people.

Kristen050

And as far as cutting hours to avoid providing benefits, companies have been doing this for a long time.  I'm not saying ACA won't make more companies do it, but it's really nothing new, especially in retail type settings. I work in a pharmacy, and instead of having 3 to 4 full time people, I have to schedule 1 full time and 5 to 6 part time people because of this. And it's been that way since before I started in the field 13 years ago.

smerka

cmeon_the_water:

SpitsNGiggles:

That really sucks kc. Sorry your company won't just offer health benefits. To answer NA's question, dh and I are going to put our house on the market this spring. The comps on our street that just sold indicate that we will be able to sell for 60k plus over what we paid 7years ago. We are a middle class family, so yes, this will effect real people.

The real estate investment income tax change only applies to individuals with an AGI over $200K and couples with an AGI over $250K. If you have an AGI over $250K as a couple- yeah, you're not middle class.

 I believe this also only applies to profit you make above $500,000 (MFJ) on the house sale.  Since most houses don't sell for more than $500,000, it really won't affect many people.

 Here's the Snopes link.  Sorry not clicky.

 https://www.snopes.com/politics/taxes/realestate.asp

penguingrrl

The tax on real estate has to do with people who make a profit of $500K on the house, so it's unlikely to affect middle income people (to the PP who stands to make $60K this will not affect you). And the higher tax rate is only on the portion that is over $500K. So if you make a profit of $600K you will pay the lower tax rate on the first $500K then the higher rate on the additional $100K, not the higher tax rate on the entire $600K (much like how the progressive income tax rates work, although it seems like many people misunderstand this as well).

As far as employers cutting hours to avoid paying insurance, that's been happening for years and will continue to happen as long as workers will fill that place. Honestly, it's one reason among many that we *need* to remove health insurance from our place of employment and have either universal health care or single payer insurance instead of group plans controlled by our employer.

nanabanana06

cmeon_the_water:

Kristen050:

And as far as cutting hours to avoid providing benefits, companies have been doing this for a long time.  I'm not saying ACA won't make more companies do it, but it's really nothing new, especially in retail type settings. I work in a pharmacy, and instead of having 3 to 4 full time people, I have to schedule 1 full time and 5 to 6 part time people because of this. And it's been that way since before I started in the field 13 years ago.

No kidding- I haven't worked in retail for more than a decade, but, all of my retail jobs juggled hours so that they didn't push any of their part timers into full time territory (where they'd have to offer benefits). It was even a concern when I worked for the federal government.

When I worked in the salon they thought "full time" was 25 hours. So I worked 25 hours per week, sometimes 30. It was pretty sad.

LuckyDad

Management is going to just keep pooping on labor until the economy improves. Then suddenly they will try to increase immigration rather than raise wages and hours.

If you have a good idea and ambition, it's a good time in history to start working for yourself.

flyingsaucer

penguingrrl:

As far as employers cutting hours to avoid paying insurance, that's been happening for years and will continue to happen as long as workers will fill that place. Honestly, it's one reason among many that we *need* to remove health insurance from our place of employment and have either universal health care or single payer insurance instead of group plans controlled by our employer.

 

Word. 

kcisthebombdotcom

GhostMonkey:

This has nothing to do with the Affordable Healthcare Act and everything to do with you working for jerks that are ok with fuvcking people over. They have decided to place the blame for their own greed on that because most people haven't bothered to learn what the Act actually entails.

 

And that isn't even remotely new. This has happened for years. Talk to any Wal Mart employee.

 

 

I think it's ignorant to say "oh they're just greedy" to do that. Theyr'e a small business. Winter is slow. Insurance rates for them are going to jump up for them and aren't going to be affordable. It's also an administrative nightmare to have to contact every employee every time they hit 28+ hours so they have proof on paper that they opted out of healthcare so they don't get fined.

People use the walmart example (and yes, they're greedy) but forget that isn't the "average" employer in America. The average business is a small business. My DH works for a company that makes 1.5m in sales a year. After everything is said and done the owner takes home $90k a year. Given that's a decent living but I certainly don't expect him to lose a significant amount of his take home pay to provide health insurance either. His whole livelihood is wrapped in the business--if it fails he loses everything.

This might not be new--but you're certainly going to see this happen A LOT more now.

kcisthebombdotcom

cmeon_the_water:

Kristen050:

And as far as cutting hours to avoid providing benefits, companies have been doing this for a long time.  I'm not saying ACA won't make more companies do it, but it's really nothing new, especially in retail type settings. I work in a pharmacy, and instead of having 3 to 4 full time people, I have to schedule 1 full time and 5 to 6 part time people because of this. And it's been that way since before I started in the field 13 years ago.

No kidding- I haven't worked in retail for more than a decade, but, all of my retail jobs juggled hours so that they didn't push any of their part timers into full time territory (where they'd have to offer benefits). It was even a concern when I worked for the federal government.

I worked in hotels for a while and something similar happened--but it was a lot different than now. People had to average over 32 hours over a 3 month period for benes so employees were allowed to grab some extra shifts occasionally without having to worry.

Most of the employees where I work rely on those few weeks where they get 40+ hours by covering a shift or two for someone else to help pay bills. They're really going to be hurting without it.

smerka

https://money.cnn.com/2012/06/28/smallbusiness/supreme-court-health-reform/index.htm

 

this link talks about the business side of things.  Employers with less than 50 full time employees don't have to provide insurance.  And there are tax credits if they do. 

smerka

And as far as I can tell, nothing kicks in January 1, 2013.  The mandate doesn't happen until 2014 and there is a grace period.  I do taxes and the only thing we've been told so far is that the income listed on your 2012 return is what you will use to determine if you qualify for a subsidy when the state exchanges open in October 2013.  But the information out is not at all detailed and everything is kind of up in the air.  As Nancy Pelosi said, they had to sign the bill to find out what's in it.  

MesmrEwe

Family involved in a family business...  Patriarch of the family passes leaving property to heirs who were making ~$36,000/yr..  Heirs can't afford to remain in business themselves because previously they were unable to develop a savings for capital investments so decide to sell the business and real estate divided equally totals more than the threshold...  They get nailed with the capital gains, estate, and other taxes to the tune of ~50% even though they've worked their lives for the family business, they're in essense giving away 50% of what they worked for...  Or the family farm...  Yes, it does affect real middle class people. 

kcisthebombdotcom

GhostMonkey:

KC_13:

GhostMonkey:

This has nothing to do with the Affordable Healthcare Act and everything to do with you working for jerks that are ok with fuvcking people over. They have decided to place the blame for their own greed on that because most people haven't bothered to learn what the Act actually entails.

 

And that isn't even remotely new. This has happened for years. Talk to any Wal Mart employee.

 

 

I think it's ignorant to say "oh they're just greedy" to do that. Theyr'e a small business. Winter is slow. Insurance rates for them are going to jump up for them and aren't going to be affordable. It's also an administrative nightmare to have to contact every employee every time they hit 28+ hours so they have proof on paper that they opted out of healthcare so they don't get fined.

Yeah, horribly tough to gather a single piece of paper from a few people.

Considering they have to do that annually for open enrollment anyway.

 

It really depends on the nature of the business. I work for a small, local restaurant chain. They have five locations and one corporate office. Yes, getting paperwork to 5 different restaurant managers at 5 different locations, getting said restaurant managers to get paperwork to employees that may mostly work opposite shifts from them, then getting it back to them in the appropriate time frame sounds like an easy task, but as someone who worked in HR for nearly a decade it's not as easy as it sounds. Managers are notoriously sucky at doing crap like this.

I previously worked for a hotel with 350+ employees. Every month we had to run reports on hours worked by all hourly associates. If their hours dropped below 32 and they were on any sort of insurance through the company, we sent them a notice letter. This happened a good percentage of the staff monthly since there were huge fluctuations in staffing levels based on demand. The second month it happened, another notice letter. The third month they received a notice that benefits were being termed which they had to sign/return. On the reverse, if someone worked over 32 hours for three consecutive months they had to be offered insurance and had thirty days to return the paperwork to enroll  or return the signed decline notice. Certain times of year this would literally be 100+ people to track. I constantly had to harass managers/hunt employees down for the paperwork and naturally when they didnt get it back in time to get insurance when the date was all over the paperwork/I harassed them it was my fault.

These steps might be easier if you have a staff of 50 of mostly desk job staff  but it gets more complicated with 24/7 operations with staff you have to track down since they don't exactly sit at a desk all day.

Doing that on a weekly basis would f'ing suck.

kcisthebombdotcom

Stardust225:

I think it is ignorant to be all shocked and suprised that employers sh!t on employees on the reg.

I also think it is ignorant to say it is ok because it is a small business. Just because it isn't walmart doesn't make it more ok.

Uh, there is a HUGE difference between walmart and a small business. Small businesses have far less wiggle room. The average small business owner makes under $100k a year; many make as little as $30k. They don't exactly have tons of cash coming in like a place like walmart does to afford steep increases in insurance rates/fines. People are always saying "oh businesses sh!t on people because they can" when in reality they literally can't do it because they can't afford it.

smerka

KC - I don't think you work for small businesses by most standard definitions.

alli&dan

cmeon_the_water:

Kristen050:

And as far as cutting hours to avoid providing benefits, companies have been doing this for a long time.  I'm not saying ACA won't make more companies do it, but it's really nothing new, especially in retail type settings. I work in a pharmacy, and instead of having 3 to 4 full time people, I have to schedule 1 full time and 5 to 6 part time people because of this. And it's been that way since before I started in the field 13 years ago.

No kidding- I haven't worked in retail for more than a decade, but, all of my retail jobs juggled hours so that they didn't push any of their part timers into full time territory (where they'd have to offer benefits). It was even a concern when I worked for the federal government.

This. My company keeps most of their employees at under 37 hours per week. Any over that is full-time and eligible for benefits. It's been like this for years.

kcisthebombdotcom

GhostMonkey:

KC_13:

GhostMonkey:

KC_13:

GhostMonkey:

This has nothing to do with the Affordable Healthcare Act and everything to do with you working for jerks that are ok with fuvcking people over. They have decided to place the blame for their own greed on that because most people haven't bothered to learn what the Act actually entails.

 

And that isn't even remotely new. This has happened for years. Talk to any Wal Mart employee.

 

 

I think it's ignorant to say "oh they're just greedy" to do that. Theyr'e a small business. Winter is slow. Insurance rates for them are going to jump up for them and aren't going to be affordable. It's also an administrative nightmare to have to contact every employee every time they hit 28+ hours so they have proof on paper that they opted out of healthcare so they don't get fined.

Yeah, horribly tough to gather a single piece of paper from a few people.

Considering they have to do that annually for open enrollment anyway.

 

It really depends on the nature of the business. I work for a small, local restaurant chain. They have five locations and one corporate office. Yes, getting paperwork to 5 different restaurant managers at 5 different locations, getting said restaurant managers to get paperwork to employees that may mostly work opposite shifts from them, then getting it back to them in the appropriate time frame sounds like an easy task, but as someone who worked in HR for nearly a decade it's not as easy as it sounds. Managers are notoriously sucky at doing crap like this.

I previously worked for a hotel with 350+ employees. Every month we had to run reports on hours worked by all hourly associates. If their hours dropped below 32 and they were on any sort of insurance through the company, we sent them a notice letter. This happened a good percentage of the staff monthly since there were huge fluctuations in staffing levels based on demand. The second month it happened, another notice letter. The third month they received a notice that benefits were being termed which they had to sign/return. On the reverse, if someone worked over 32 hours for three consecutive months they had to be offered insurance and had thirty days to return the paperwork to enroll  or return the signed decline notice. Certain times of year this would literally be 100+ people to track. I constantly had to harass managers/hunt employees down for the paperwork and naturally when they didnt get it back in time to get insurance when the date was all over the paperwork/I harassed them it was my fault.

These steps might be easier if you have a staff of 50 of mostly desk job staff  but it gets more complicated with 24/7 operations with staff you have to track down since they don't exactly sit at a desk all day.

Doing that on a weekly basis would f'ing suck.

You are legally required to get that paperwork annually from all employees. And small business is <50 employees. Perhaps you need to update yourself on that definition. Our corporate office manages to get that paperwork in from over 2,000 employees from over 10 branches across the country. It's not that difficult if you have branch managers that are competent. Maybe you should start there. Or maybe it's you that they don't want to deal with and if they know you would get in trouble for not getting those in, that was their way of sending that message. Or pehpas you need to work somewhere with software that isn't more than 20 years old as even an Excel document could easily track that information for you. And yes- your employer is a POS. There are a number of other options that wouldn't have royally screwed everyone. They chose this one instead. Klassy. As is your defense of their poor decision.

Your definition of small business is skewed. 51 employees doesn't mean it's not a small business anymore.

https://www.sba.gov/content/what-sbas-definition-small-business-concern

Yes, you are legally required to get that paperwork annually. When you work for a business where people's hours drastically vary month to month (like retail/hospitality) you have to do that kind of stuff on a monthly basis, not just once a year. It wasn't the software--running a report takes two seconds. Tracking that info for hundreds of employees on a given month and making sure they all make a decision/fill out the appropriate paperwork accordingly is time consuming though. When I worked for an IT company with 80 employees that generally worked M-F 9-5, stuff like that was a breeze since it was a small enough office where you could easily find someone/walk to their office and this info didnt need to be audited month since it didn't change. When you have to walk 10 minutes from your office to another department to talk to a few employees, it's a little different. It's also different when you need to touch base with someone who works from 10pm-5am.

If stuff like that that had to be done on a week to week basis that would be a royal PITA. I'd push everyone down to 28 hours a week to solely to not risk a fine because one employee out of 350 slipped through the cracks on just one week.

Please tell me the "options' they could have chosen that didn't include tens of thousands of dollars a month in insurance costs since you're clearly so knowledgable about the costs of running a company.

kcisthebombdotcom

alli&dan:

cmeon_the_water:

Kristen050:

And as far as cutting hours to avoid providing benefits, companies have been doing this for a long time.  I'm not saying ACA won't make more companies do it, but it's really nothing new, especially in retail type settings. I work in a pharmacy, and instead of having 3 to 4 full time people, I have to schedule 1 full time and 5 to 6 part time people because of this. And it's been that way since before I started in the field 13 years ago.

No kidding- I haven't worked in retail for more than a decade, but, all of my retail jobs juggled hours so that they didn't push any of their part timers into full time territory (where they'd have to offer benefits). It was even a concern when I worked for the federal government.

This. My company keeps most of their employees at under 37 hours per week. Any over that is full-time and eligible for benefits. It's been like this for years.

Theres a pretty big difference between 37 hours and 28 hours a week...