The Latest Example - Part Of The High Opportunity Cost Of Implementing ObamaCare

Thanks to Congressman Frelinghuysen for providing the latest example of the ObamaCare law's high compliance costs that continue to be uncovered. These problems will affect all of our lives one way or another.

 

Since being passed into law on March 23, 2010 the 2,700 page Patient Protection & Affordable Care Act (ObamaCare) - look carefully @ Dr. Bellar in the last posting & you will see she is standing on the document - has resulted in the IRS and Treasury issuing thousands of pages of additional new rules and regulations, including 40 notices, 17 regulations, 5 revenue procedures, 2 revenue rulings, and 14 Treasury decisions.  Source Congressman Frelinghuysen.

 

The Washington Examiner reports that the bureaucrats @ HHS & the IRS needed 18 pages to define the term "full-time employee" under ObamaCare. Such definition is required to specify which companies will be required to provide healthcare insurance to their employees under the new law. The government has determined that a "full-time employee" is an employee who works an average of 30 hours per week meaning that companies that employ more than fifty such workers must provide healthcare insurance or be fined.  (Oklahoma has filed a new legal challenge re employers being fined in Oklahoma where they – & several other states - do not intend to set up & run their own health insurance exchanges.)

 

This is a tit-for-tat battle because some companies were planning to hire part-time workers to get around ObamaCare forcing them to provide healthcare insurance for employees so the 30 hour work week definition for "full time employee" will counter this type of plan.  Meanwhile Darden Restaurants, which owns the Red Lobster, Olive Garden and Long Horn Steakhouse counters the reg's actions by starting to offer only 28 hour workweek schedules to hourly employees in four markets & many large companies are shedding employees and hiring contractors to do their work.  Again, source Congressman Frelinghuysen.

 

The above example of the cost of compliance is small compared to the total opportunity cost under ObamaCare that is staggering.  Congressman Frelinghuysen reports that the IRS estimates the new healthcare law will take American job creators and families nearly 80 million hours to comply with.

To put this in perspective - what can be done in 80 million hours?

• The Empire State building, which took 7 million man-hours to build, could be constructed 11 times.
• The Curiosity Rover (Mars Science Laboratory) could travel from Earth to Mars 13,048 times.
• Halley's comet, seen from Earth once every 76 years, could be spotted 119 times.

So while we are working on complying with the above type of regulations China, Brazil, & all of the other economically growing countries we are in competition with just keep speeding along in the global economy. Congressman Frelinghuysen points out that every hour and dollar spent complying with the new healthcare law are time and resources being taken from growing a business, hiring new workers, or caring for patients – these are the real opportunity costs of implementing ObamaCare.