But the Scrap Metal Is Tax Deductible by Pat Conrad MD

Does ObamaCare kill jobs? “Yes”, if you listen to the GOP or Fox News; “No” if you listen to the Democrats or Comedy Central. So what is the truth?

Years ago, when I was foolishly trying to set up a clinic with another family doc, we scheduled some hiring interviews. One of the occupants of the clown car that apparently pulled up out front was an older nurse clearly looking for a pasture in which to linger. Her sales pitch was that although she was disabled and not allowed to lift more than 10 lb., we could get special federal tax breaks by hiring a disabled person. I thought then, as I do now, that I had not gotten to this point to become someone else’s social program (admittedly ironic, coming from a family practice doc); and that tax break or not, it would still be a net money loser to hire someone who couldn’t do the damn work. So what does that have to do with ObamaCare? The new mandates and increased costs of the ACA make any new employee a potential liability. Even if they can do the job, what good is it if they don’t make the company a profit?

Arbitrarily raising the cost of labor automatically devalues that labor. If the employer thinks it makes good economic sense to provide health insurance for the workers, then he won’t need to be forced to it. It’s kind of like being forced to buy an EHR, except you can unplug that and chuck it in the dumpster if it threatens to sue you over disability discrimination. Being forced to do something with the promise that compliance will limit your net loss only makes sense to socialists, for whom giving away other peoples’ work always makes sense.

An article in “The Hill” reports the CBO is projecting a loss of labor hours [the] “equivalent of 2 million jobs over the next decade.” This almost 1% predicted shrinkage in the labor force is attributed to workers choosing to work fewer hours, quit/retire, or remain unemployed for longer periods, sustained by the gerrymandered federal subsidies. This is not a prediction of mass firings, but of the results of workers’ choices. In effect, ObamaCare has allowed a new range of worker options at the employer’s (literal) expense, a real and entirely arbitrary increase in the cost of labor. “The Hill” piece ends warily, “The CBO said its estimates were still based on uncertain evidence, citing, for example, that it does not know yet how people will respond to the work incentives created by the law.”

Unsatisfied, I looked at this same story in “The Fiscal Times“, whose headline reassured that “Obamacare Won’t Really Cost the U.S. 2 Million Jobs.” Whew. By 2025, the “CBO estimates, the ACA will make the labor supply, measured as the total compensation paid to workers, 0.86 percent smaller than it would have been in the absence of that law.”

On the surface that doesn’t sound too bad. But wouldn’t 1% less wages paid have a multiplier effect across tax revenues, additional state and federal benefits paid out, and decreased spending amongst that 1% that would dampen the outlook for their retail neighbors? “Glenn Kessler, The Washington Post’s fact checker, wrote last year that “this is not about jobs offered by employers. It’s about workers — and the choices they make.”” Aha! Didn’t someone else just make that incredibly brilliant point?

The Fiscal Times also notes that:

• the ACA’s “phasing out health insurance subsidies as people’s income goes up creates a disincentive to work more.”
• Other provisions of the law will reduce the labor supply “by imposing higher taxes on labor income directly” — for example, the ACA’s increase in the payroll tax that higher-income workers must pay for Medicare’s Hospital Insurance program.”

The article dismisses the gloom and doom, cooing “In reality, the country has experienced 69 consecutive months of job expansion since enactment of Obamacare, while the unemployment rate was cut in half.” If you follow the news, you’ll know how nakedly bogus that statement is. If you don’t, then we don’t have the time in this column.

What neither article can say is how much unrealized economic growth is a direct result of ObamaCare. How many small businesses declined to hire that magical 50th worker that would invite the feds in? With premiums blasting off, how many corporations large and small have curtailed further hiring precisely to avoid these fiscal punishments, not just in this year, but in the decade to come?

The bottom line is that any sort of employer mandate increases the cost of labor. Anything increasing your overhead without a commensurate profit increase is a disincentive. That is why increasing the minimum wage to $15/hour won’t fix anything, and why ObamaCare was never going to be pro-business (except for Big Insurance). When McDonald’s finally figures out the best PR angle to replacing human workers with burger ‘bots, this will be the reason.