Politics and work usually do not go well together, but the other day President Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act came up. Not many of my fellow work associates seemed to care about the law until I pointed out it has already had a large effect on employees and the economy.

Many restaurants have cut back hours and staff due to the impending costs imposed on them by the new law. Applebee’s and Papa John’s both announced Obamacare could lead to damaging cuts in their works forces. According to the new law, employers with 50 or more full-time employees must provide government-mandated health care or risk a $2,000 fine per worker.

The Medicare tax will go up as well. These are just some of the ways the law will affect everyday people. Looking at these effects, there might be a better way to increase health insurance coverage without hurting the economy.

The approach taken by Democrats to increase health insurance coverage was to essentially have the healthy subsidize health care for the sick and poor by expanding Medicaid and having the government mandate everyone buy health insurance. It is an excellent goal to try to increase the number of insured Americans, but I disagree with the means they went about it.

Instead of a top-down government mandate strategy, I would suggest fixing a few simple problems to our system to make the health care market more efficient, affordable and competitive.

The first change would be to put a limit on tax-free employer health contributions. To Obama’s credit, he did include a version of this in his health care bill. Second, individuals who purchase private health insurance should receive a tax credit. This would vastly expand the market for individual health care and increase competition. Third, insurance companies should be allowed to sell insurance across state lines. This regulation currently hurts consumers by limiting their options and driving prices up. Fourth, tax-free private health savings accounts should be utilized more to help individuals save money for when they get really sick.

These are just some of the simple ideas that would have huge effects on driving down the price of health care and making health care affordable for everyone without more taxes and subsidies.

Stephen Sydor
Class of 2014
International relations, economics major

 

Published on December 5, 2012 at 1:00 am