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Business Owner to Congress: Health Care Law is a ‘Dream Killer’
Even with the Supreme Court having reached its decision to uphold President Obama’s health care law, small businesses are facing a climate of great uncertainty. The employer mandate included in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act requires business owners to make tough decisions for which there are no good choices.
Mary Miller, CEO of JANCOA Janitorial Services, Inc., a 40-year-old family-owned business headquartered in Cincinnati, Ohio, called these decisions a “devil’s choice” in her July 10 testimony at a House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing titled Examining the Impact of ObamaCare on Job Creators and the Economy. [Miller did a video interview with us following her testimony. Check it out above.]
JANCOA offers its 320 full-time employees a limited-benefit plan and covers 85% of the premium. However, most of the employees elect not to enroll, choosing instead to take home more of their compensation in the form of wages. The employer and individual mandates scheduled to take effect in 2014 will eliminate choice.
We will no longer have the option of offering these types of plans, and our employees will no longer have the freedom to choose how to spend their wages. What is even worse, the law will force us to choose between several impossible options in order to remain in business and will jeopardize our ability to offer the types of jobs our employees value.
What are these “impossible options” facing Miller? Her company will either have to pay nearly $4,400 per employee for coverage that satisfies the mandate at a cost of nearly $1.4 million per year, stop offering coverage and pay $2,000 per full-time employee in penalties at a cost of $640,000, or transition its staff to part-time status in order to mitigate the penalties.
Moe Tom
July 12th, 2012
Plea falling on deaf ears. Hey Congress form another commission to look into this matter.
Moe Tom
July 12th, 2012
Mrs. Miller is probably not being truthful. Hold’er
in contempt. Go for it. We are so proud of you Congress.
Boobie the Rocket Dog
July 12th, 2012
Sounds like Dagny Taggart.
eternal cracker p
July 12th, 2012
The other option is to go out of business all together.. then we can have socialized janitorial services, because a clean living space is a RIGHT!
Bad Brad
July 12th, 2012
The Health Care Law is just another straw on the camels back under this administration. Figures they would have a service based business there to testify. They should have invited a couple manufactures in there to testify. The committee would have walked out with their hair in fire.
Billy Fuster
July 12th, 2012
If I were a Doctor I would go on strike.
Ricky
July 12th, 2012
Can someone here please explain to me why?
Why I had to fill out a 12 page financial form?
12 freaking pages!
No, I’m not making this up!
just for a Chest X-Ray?
Here’s an idea.. instead of over charging everyone, why not make them reasonable in cost?
That way, they wouldn’t have to worry about being paid..
old_oaks
July 12th, 2012
Part time employment is where it’s at these days, everyone is doing it because employees are toxic.
Employers need workers to do work, but workers come with a huge amount of red tape and liability. A line in the sand is between part/full time employees making part timers less toxic. This should be evident to the idiots in government that their policy sucks.
BUT – the turds will spin it. JANCOA used to need 320 full time employees. Soon they will need 823 employees to fill part-time shifts, Obomba & Co. will say they created 503 jobs.
Stranded in Sonoma
July 12th, 2012
But, but, but, but…the democrats are the party of choice! They must be. They keep telling me they are.
bitterclinger
July 12th, 2012
What does the Commie Party care? They got theirs; to hell with the rest of us.