Obamacare Mandates Will Cost Business $49 Billion a Year

24 Sep, 2009 by Warner Todd Huston

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It has been estimated that employer mandates forced on businesses by H.R. 3200 and the other legislation barreling through Congress will cost America’s businesses $49 billion a year if passed.

According to the Heritage Foundation the mandates in the bills now under consideration will force employers to buy healthcare insurance for their employees or pay a per head tax to the federal government. This could affect between 95 million to 105 million workers and about 1 million small businesses.

What will this mean to America’s business community?

The mandates will cost businesses at least $49 billion per year and put 5.2 million low-wage workers at risk of unemploy_ment or reduced working hours. The prospect of fewer job opportunities in the future will put another 10.2 million workers at risk of slower wage growth and cuts in other benefits. Up to 382,000 low-wage unskilled workers are likely to lose their jobs.

Worse, these higher costs of doing business will be passed onto customers in higher prices and/or restricted availability of products. It cannot be ignored that higher prices will hurt low-income households the hardest.

This all amounts to a defacto tax increase for all Americans regardless of income level.

There will be another result of these mandates. Millions of workers will actually lose their healthcare as smaller businesses realize that it will be cheaper to pay the government fines for not having healthcare than to actually pay for and endure the administrative annoyances of administering a healthcare plan.

So in what is supposed to be an assurance that people can “keep their plans if they like them,” Obama will be forcing millions of workers to lose their plans whether they like them and want to keep them or not.