I attended a meeting last evening on Obamacare. One example given was a woman that owns a company with 450 employees of which all but 50 are minimum wage. She started the company after her husband died and anticipated a max of 50 employees if she succeeded. She is now 78 years old. She continues to operate the company because she feels an obligation to her employees. She certainly doesn’t want to get up and go to the office every day.
She has 400 employees earning $12/hour for 40 hours a week. This is $24,960 per year for the minimum wage earners. This portion of her payroll is about $10,000,000 annually. There is no way that she can afford to provide health insurance for her employees. As a result, the IRS is going to tag her $2000 per employee as a penalty. This equates to $1,000,000 per year. There is no way she can pay this. Its 10% of her payroll for these employees. The nature of her business will not allow her to increase her prices to cover this expense. She is going to shut down the business. Her 450 employees will be unemployed.
Now, does it matter whether she tells her employees what to expect unless Obamacare is repealed? Personally, I think that she should warn them so that they can be proactive in trying to determine their future.
The CEO of Westgate is faced with problems just as the woman is yet they may be somewhat different in nature. He knows that Obama hasn’t been good for the economy, and has given no indication that he will be if given four more years. He also knows that a prolonged sick economy is a death knell to his business. However, he isn’t sure that his employees know the consequences of four more years of Obama. He was straight forward when he warned them. He did the right thing.
Excellent post, Saltmeat.
Excellent post. In the world of liberal envy, business people make “windfall profits” every year. They have no idea that the line between profit and loss is often razor thin.