IRS: No Need For Employer To Provide Affordable Family Insurance Under The Affordable Care Act

We really are so screwed . . .

Just One Minute has a post up on the latest IRS regs on the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and their foreseeable consequences - a disaster for married couples, at least until the Obama camp announces massive new unplanned expenses for Obamacare. First this from the NYT:

In a long-awaited interpretation of the new health care law, the Obama administration said Monday that employers must offer health insurance to employees and their children, but will not be subject to any penalties if family coverage is unaffordable to workers. . . .

As the NYT points out, this could lead to a situation where an employee is covered, but his spouse and children can neither afford to be brought under family coverage, nor might they be eligible for government subsidies to buy their own insurance. It creates the worst of all worlds - and an incredibly strong incentive for divorcing or simply staying unmarried.

As Tom Maguire at Just One Minute explains:

The gist is that employers are not obliged to weigh a worker's family status in deciding his total compensation, which makes sense - because the family insurance can cost an extra $10,000 per year, an employer would have a strong incentive to avoid family guys and gals when hiring for lower paying jobs. . . .

Well, we see through this game - Team Obama will eventually announce an interpretation of the rules such that families are eligible for the federal subsidies even if the employed partner is being offered affordable individual insurance. Delaying the announcement of that "unexpected" expense as long as possible is just part of the current budget imbroglio.

Remember - we had to pass the bill to see what was in it.

NO TIME LIKE THE FUTURE FOR BAD NEWS:

From Via Meadia:

So: will the new law bust government budgets, crush business under unaffordable costs or make health insurance prohibitively expensive for millions of working families? The wording of the law seems unclear on this point, and the Obama administration doesn’t want to give an answer. The new regulations seem to suggest that the administration realizes that business can’t pay these costs; at a time of fiscal cliff negotiations and massive public anxiety about deficits it doesn’t want to point to the potential new costs its cherished health care law could impose on the government. It is therefore waiting until a more opportune moment to take on the question of how the American health insurance system is going to work.

We still don’t know what kind of a health care system Congress created back in 2010. We still don’t know whether it will work or how much it will cost — and who will pay how much of the bill. The Affordable Care Act is not a solution to America’s health care problems.

On a final note, let me just add that every time I remember Obama's assault on our private health care system because of the evil of "profits," I just shiver. I am taking care of my mother, who is suffering from Alzheimers. She has Blue Cross Blue Shield of Maryland, and Medicare. I can assure you, I have had far less issues with Blue Cross than Medicare.

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