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U.S. Constitution Title: AP: Obamacare kills small business Before it was Obamacare, it was Romneycare. Requiring employers to provide health insurance failed in Massachusetts. To be fair to Mitt, he was working with a Democratic legislature. And it was an experiment. But what was Barack Obama’s excuse? The Associated Press report: BOSTON — Small-business owner Joe Ascioti says Massachusetts’ 2006 health care law has left him facing $15,000 in fines since it took effect. Now, he’s worried the nation’s new health care overhaul could bring similar woes to employers nationwide. “The state has mandated something that is one size fits all, which is what this national bill is looking like. And guess who gets to pay for it? The employer,” said Ascioti. As business owners across the country weigh the new law, they’re looking to Massachusetts for harbingers of things to come. Massachusetts’ law, which mandates near-universal coverage and requires that businesses with 11 or more workers offer insurance, provided the blueprint for the health law signed by President Barack Obama. Massachusetts employers who don’t comply face annual fines of $295 per worker. While there’s been plenty of grumbling among business owners that the state law has squeezed them financially during a tough recession, there’s little evidence the law is forcing employers to close or sending them fleeing for the border. Other businesses have welcomed the law and business leaders helped guarantee its passage. Drawing parallels between the state and national laws is tricky. While both share many of the same tenets – requiring businesses to shoulder more of the burden of health coverage – there are major differences. The national law doesn’t require businesses offer insurance but hits employers with 50 or more workers with an annual $2,000-per-employee fee if the company doesn’t insure them and the government ends up subsidizing their workers’ coverage. The national law also grants tax credits for businesses with 25 or fewer workers with average annual wages below $50,000, which Democrats say that will benefit 3.6 million business nationwide. And beginning in 2014, businesses with up to 100 employees will be able to pool their employees in state-created insurance exchanges to increase their negotiating clout with insurance companies – a move supporters say could aid 29 million businesses. For critics, one of the most troubling aspects of the laws is the fines. Massachusetts has already fined more than 1,000 companies over $18 million for failing to offer medical insurance to their workers. Ascioti, who owns Reliable Temps Inc., in Agawam, Mass., and hires about 1,000 workers each year, ran afoul of the state mandate that he insure 25 percent of his workers. “They took a cookie-cutter approach to an issue that wasn’t general enough for a cookie cutter,” he said. Such penalties make Doug Newman, owner of Newman Concrete Services in Richmond, Maine, nervous. In the past 18 months, as the economy battered the construction industry, Newman’s work force shrunk from 125 employees to just 25. He is worried that once the economy turns and he begins to hire back workers, he’ll face a critical decision when he nears the 50-worker mark and is no longer exempt from penalties. Newman now pays 60 percent of his employees’ individual premiums and 40 percent of their family premiums. “The 51st employee could mean $100,000 in costs. I’ve been calling it the concrete ceiling,” he said. “No employer is going to hire No. 51 if it brings all these mandates down on you, because they’re pretty onerous.” Don Day is also worried. Day owns eight small businesses in McKinney, Texas, including two restaurants, a boutique hotel and several retail shops. Although he employs 125 workers, he offers health care for just a few key employees. Just an extra $200 a month per employee for health care could set him back hundreds of thousands of dollars a year – a cost he can’t afford. “It’s not just me, it’s every small business across this land,” he said. “A lot of small businesses are going to go out of business.”
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#1. To: Bigot Boy On Bozo, skip intro, Fred Mertz, abu el benat (#0)
Bigot Boy's Bozo number must have reflected that everyone except Boofer had him bozo'd...
sorry...misspelled your name...
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