Maybe we do need to change Obamacare after all

We did a post here last week about Darden Restaurant’s plan to reduce employee hours to less than 30 hours per week so that Darden would not be subject to the Obamacare tax for failing to provide “government approved” insurance to every full time employee. 

Darden’s “solution” to Obamacare’s mandates seemed obvious to all before Obamacare was passed…all except those in Congress pushing this monstrosity.

The law of unintended consequences, however, has finally caught up with Senator Dick Durbin (D. Ill.).  It would be nice if those in Congress actually thought of these things before they passed legislation, but, as they say, better late than never.

Senator Durbin is now concerned about Darden’s plan calling it a “bad result” stemming from the Obamacare legislation.  But, not to worry.  Senator Durbin would like to “sit-down” with Darden and “find out what it is”.

Let me save the Senator some time.  What “it is” is Obamacare. 

Obamacare converts a full time employee with health insurance to a part time employee with no health insurance.

Nice job, Senator.

 

SoundOffSister

The Sound Off Sister was an Assistant United States Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, and special trial attorney for the Department of Justice, Criminal Division; a partner in the Florida law firm of Shutts & Bowen, and an adjunct professor at the University of Miami, School of Law. The Sound Off Sister offers frequent commentary concerning legislation making its way through Congress, including the health reform legislation passed in early 2010.

19 Comments

  1. Dimsdale on October 18, 2012 at 9:42 pm

    “Turban” Durbin isn’t known for his smart decisions.?? He is known for his political ones though….
    ?
    Any time gov’t puts a limit on something, people back below that limit to avoid it to save, or better, keep their money, be it numbers of employees, hours worked or amount of money made.?? The ultimate manifestation of this is the black market.?
    ?
    When will the pols learn this??



    • ricbee on October 19, 2012 at 9:54 pm

      We will follow Italy?s ?example.



  2. Plainvillian on October 18, 2012 at 11:18 pm

    Never.? They’re too smart.



  3. sammy22 on October 18, 2012 at 11:38 pm

    Darden really cares about its employees! That’s why it’s on the top 100 Forbes Cos. to work for. Maybe Forbes might drop it from this exalted group. You think?



    • Dimsdale on October 19, 2012 at 9:22 am

      The bottom line always trumps the headline.?? And if a well rated company is doing this, think about the ones not so employee friendly!



  4. Fish on October 19, 2012 at 6:05 am

    Hey, it looks like Obama is hiring. I,m not sure if you get health care with these jobs though.
    http://nwct.craigslist.org/npo/3343347148.html
    ?



  5. JBS on October 19, 2012 at 8:39 am

    Collateral damage on the way to the single-payer government-run healthcare system. “Bumps in the road.” There will be more.
    ?
    Coming soon: Insurance companies getting out of the health insurance field entirely.
    ????????? *******************************************************************
    This is wicked. En mass employees are adjusted to 29-hours per week and new, “part-time” employees are hired to fill the slack. The Obama Regime would trumpet “new hires are up!!!” Yada,yada, yada. End result would be no one would have health insurance coverage, etc., and . . . too Dickensian.?
    ?
    ?



    • Dimsdale on October 19, 2012 at 9:23 am

      Or Dante’s Inferno…..?? 😉



    • ricbee on October 20, 2012 at 11:44 am

      How?d you get that emoticon?



    • Dimsdale on October 20, 2012 at 6:59 pm

      Just a semicolon, hyphen and close ellipse.



    • stinkfoot on October 20, 2012 at 6:29 pm

      Those “bumps in the road” are likely anticipated.? A good way to cultivate popular support for “single payer” is to create a situation where people are being dumped from coverage by employers taking advantage of purposefully created loopholes.
      ?
      Mistake 1: assuming that the progressives real goal is to actually address the out of control spike in health care costs.
      Mistake 2: assuming that they (progressives) are stupid.



    • stinkfoot on October 20, 2012 at 6:31 pm

      The “mistakes” are not directed at JBS… just general response to the political narrative I hear on the radio and in conversation.



  6. ricbee on October 19, 2012 at 9:52 pm

    This was so obvious to anyone with any sense. Other companis have been avoiding other laws in the same or other ways.



    • stinkfoot on October 20, 2012 at 9:16 pm

      This is why I believe the purpose of the loophole was to precipitate “motivated” support for a single payer system as Treasodent Obama wanted in the first place.



  7. dennis on October 22, 2012 at 10:20 am

    What is going to happen if this law is allowed to stay is that “all” good employers will drop health care if their cost is more than the Penalty, Tax or whatever it is now. Simple math says
    to pay the fine and the difference goes to profits. Good business sense? or bad for employees? They all get to keep their jobs or risk getting reduced to part time or no time. Justice Roberts was saying to us, this is who you voted into office , now suffer or better yet vote them out.



  8. sammy22 on October 22, 2012 at 5:07 pm

    “Good” bean-counters in a given company will evaluate if foregoing? healthcare costs as a deduction trumps the penalty.



  9. Dimsdale on October 23, 2012 at 1:44 pm

    You can get healthcare that is good, inexpensive or universal: pick any two.



  10. SeeingRed on October 29, 2012 at 9:08 am

    Fear not.? The good senator will no doubt propose another law intended to help save us all from ourselves.



  11. dennis on November 1, 2012 at 3:57 pm

    If healthcare costs are being evaluated as a deduction for the company, why are all companies increases the employees share?.. which in turn decreases their deuction? Easy way to understand this concept is: your co. pays 10,000.00 for your healthcare, regardless of what your share is, the penalty is going to be 2000.00 per employee. As an employer?I can save $8,000.00 per employee right to my bottom line. Multiply this out for any company over 50 employees and realize an increase in profits. It really isn’t that difficult.



square-obamacare

The website's content and articles were migrated to a new framework in October 2023. You may see [shortcodes in brackets] that do not make any sense. Please ignore that stuff. We may fix it at some point, but we do not have the time now.

You'll also note comments migrated over may have misplaced question marks and missing spaces. All comments were migrated, but trackbacks may not show.

The site is not broken.