Click to see

Click to see
Obama countdown

Wednesday, February 5, 2014

Obamacare, the entrepreneurial bill, conquers joblock

Clearly the White House was blind sided by the Congressional Budget Office's estimate that Obamacare would cause 2.3 million workers to leave the labor market by 2024. Jason Furman, Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors was rushed in to put a positive spin on another glaring negative of the ACA.
The Obamacare law provides insurance subsidies and expands Medicaid allowing people to avoid “joblock,” or working somewhere just to maintain health insurance, Furman said.
Joblock! George Orwell call your office. Is this not the same joblock that your father faced when he got up every morning for 40 years, drove to work where he helped produce a valuable product in return for a wage that allowed him raise 4 kids in relative comfort if not affluence? In years past was not joblock referred to as a trade or career?
Fortunately for Mr. Furman the news outlets don't send their best and brightest to cover the the White House. A Neil Cavuto or a Rick Santelli would have asked him since when was lower labor force participation a good thing. "Mr. Furman do you expect us to believe that fewer people working actually raises per capita GDP? Aren't you telling us that many employers may not be able to hire the people they need and still make a profit because government incentives not to work have priced these people out of the job market? Mr. Furman is not the CBO telling us the same thing the Republicans have been telling us when they say that extended unemployment benefits cause lower work force participation?"
Furman fell back on the old Obama ploy of finding the one person you inevitably benefits from a disastrous policy and trotting her out before the cameras except in this case he was reduced to using a hypothetical person.
“First of all, for many people, this potentially is an incentive to do more,” he responded. “An incentive for more entrepreneurship because they’re not locked into a job, there’s an incentive for employers to hire more people because the cost of health care is lower.”
Since when is the cost of health care lower? Are employers cutting hours and trimming staff because health care is cheap?
As to his point that there will be more entrepreneurship because people won't be locked into jobs, did he study economics at the Nancy Pelosi School of Economic Illiteracy?
"We see it as an entrepreneurial bill, a bill that says to someone, if you want to be creative and be a musician or whatever, you can leave your work, focus on your talent, your skill, your passion, your aspirations because you will have health care."-Nancy Pelosi

So now pajama boy won't be locked in to his fry cook job at Wendys? He will have time to hone entrepreneurial skills, his passions, his aspirations, maybe move to Vermont and breed organic guppies, drink hot chocolate, and talk about health care?
In the end if the CBO projection is correct, and it may well not be, fewer people will be doing the work and paying the taxes to support the 2.3 million worker who have been incentivized into marginal employment. The same people who are now at least the paying payroll taxes that fund Medicare and Social Security will need more income assistance in the forms of food stamps, earned income tax credits, rent assistance and Obama phones. Wonderful legislation, that ACA!

No comments:

Post a Comment