(07-02-2012, 01:48 PM)Bolty Wrote: In the US, your health insurance is provided by your employer, who takes advantage of group policy rates along with fronting part of the monthly cost to keep your individual costs down.
PERSONAL EFFECTS ON A SMALL BUSINESS
As a manager of a business that itself is part of a small corporation with many stores whose total sum far exceeds 50-employees, we will be hit hard by these new health care reforms. Our vice president has become well versed in how the laws will affect our business, as well as having our lawyers advise us. The sum of the effect on us will be any employees working full-time must be offered health care through us - which would utterly bankrupt us! So... we have to cut everyone down to part-time at 30-hours or less, however the US Government is calculating total hours at 31-days, or so I've been told. This is an issue because some months don't have that many days, meaning the actual amount we need to reduce our employees hours down to is 24-hours per week. This will drastically change the landscape of our business and damage family paychecks and well-being. It's a real tragedy for everyone involved. We are keeping our fingers crossed for an amendment of some kind.
STATE DISABILITY
If everyone has personal insurance, then paying into state disability seems rather pointless. I guess it's going to come down to "where" someone was injured, because no insurance company really wants to pay a claim if they can pass the buck. HOWEVER, if small businesses could, instead of paying into Disability, offer Health Care, this could offset the fees - a win-win for everyone! In theory, if everyone has their OWN insurance, there is no need for state disability because even if a customer injures themselves on your property, they still have their own insurance; somehow I doubt the insurance companies will agree with this though.
"The true value of a human being is determined primarily by the measure and the sense in which he has attained liberation from the self." -Albert Einsetin