Capitalist reaction to "Obamacare"

[A Revolutionary Tool]

I don't know if this belongs in here, workers struggles, or ongoing struggles but I put it here. There is a provision in the Affordable Care Act("Obamacare") which states employers will have to help pay for healthcare coverage of their workers who work 28+ hours a week. Companies like Papa Johns have complained about how that's going to drive up the cost of their pizzas by a few cents, but a much more serious move being made by many companies is to cut the hours their workers work below 28 hours just so they won't have to pitch in a little for their workers healthcare. This is a devestating blow to workers, a blow that hits the workers making minimum wage hardest.

I have friends at McDonalds, Roundtable, Papa Johns, KFC, Subway, all getting there hours cut to around 28 hours a week and the reason given by management is Obamacare. Working on minimum wage in California, that's about $5,000 less a year on what were already poverty wages. Organization amongst fast-food workers is now more important than ever because of this new onslaught against them by the bosses.

[Blake's Baby]

First, "Obamacare" is capitalist; if you're talking about the reaction of some particular capitalists, you can't claim that it's anything like generalised across the whole capitalist class.

Second, they're fighting the wrong battle, in the UK what happened when universal health insurance was introduced was that wages went down. Previously, workers had been paid a wage based on the fact that they had to pay their own medical bills. After universal health insurance, that part of the wage was removed. It benefitted some workers - those who were, in general, paying less for their medical bills - but adversely affected others (mostly workers without families) who were now paying a greater proportion of their former wages in national insurance contributions, because they were in part paying for other workers and their families.

Those companies would probably be better off arguing that the Minimum Wage should be cut, because the workers are being paid a health-insurance component that they're also having paid by the company. So the company is paying twice.

[Red Commissar]

It has been odd seeing the vitrol some businesses have reacted to this, the Wall Street Journal in particular has been putting forcasts for some bad downturns after 2014 once the law goes into full effect. We would think that the law was fashioned to ease pains off businesses while passing the burden onto their employees- which'll of course happen. Even if the employer is giving you insurance, that'll come up as a deduction on your paycheck.

Who exactly benefits here? People need prices of healthcare controlled and a reliable form of government insurance, not some impression of regulated insurance they all have to buy into. At the same time these businesses are up in arms about what it'll do to them, treating it as an existential threat. In both respects it hurts everyone, except off course the insurance companies that'll expand from this, and the bloated health"care" sector of the US economy (not insubstantial... but some estimates it's up to fifth of the US economy!).

This is why I get confused when talking to Obama supporters about the act. I mean these guys are setting themselves up for massive disappointment and disillusionment, since Republicans will come out of it with the "told you so" factor. Hopefully that'll build up the case for some real changes and not half-assed reform, but it could at the same time make an 80sesque backlash of conservativism. It's really messed up here.

[A Revolutionary Tool]

First, "Obamacare" is capitalist; if you're talking about the reaction of some particular capitalists, you can't claim that it's anything like generalised across the whole capitalist class.

Second, they're fighting the wrong battle, in the UK what happened when universal health insurance was introduced was that wages went down. Previously, workers had been paid a wage based on the fact that they had to pay their own medical bills. After universal health insurance, that part of the wage was removed. It benefitted some workers - those who were, in general, paying less for their medical bills - but adversely affected others (mostly workers without families) who were now paying a greater proportion of their former wages in national insurance contributions, because they were in part paying for other workers and their families.

Those companies would probably be better off arguing that the Minimum Wage should be cut, because the workers are being paid a health-insurance component that they're also having paid by the company. So the company is paying twice.
Yes of course Obamacare is capitalist, I'm not trying to defend it or anything. But there are capitalists, all of whom I've heard coming from companies paying workers minimum wage(who never had any plans to help cover their workers health insurance, or provided a plan that they knew their workers wouldn't pay into because it's shit coverage and too expensive on minimum wage), who are cutting workers hours by 12 hours if they were lucky to work 40 hours. And that sure is a hell of a lot of people, if that's the policy at my old McDonalds I worked at(which is where I first heard about it from a former coworker) that means that's company policy for all 33 stores this douchebag owns. That's more than a thousand workers probably. And it's most likely at every McDonalds in the US.

Then there's Roundtables, Papa Johns, etc, doing the same thing, this could be millions of minimum wage workers feeling the pain because of ther bosses decision to save a few dollars at the expense of their health.

I don't think minimum wage will be cut, especially when the president has come out saying the minimum wage needs to be increased and it being massively popular, even amongst Republicans. I don't understand why your reply to what I said essentially boils down to "capitalists are doing it wrong they're should be trying to cut wages instead" :confused:

[A Revolutionary Tool]

It has been odd seeing the vitrol some businesses have reacted to this, the Wall Street Journal in particular has been putting forcasts for some bad downturns after 2014 once the law goes into full effect. We would think that the law was fashioned to ease pains off businesses while passing the burden onto their employees- which'll of course happen. Even if the employer is giving you insurance, that'll come up as a deduction on your paycheck.

Who exactly benefits here? People need prices of healthcare controlled and a reliable form of government insurance, not some impression of regulated insurance they all have to buy into. At the same time these businesses are up in arms about what it'll do to them, treating it as an existential threat. In both respects it hurts everyone, except off course the insurance companies that'll expand from this, and the bloated health"care" sector of the US economy (not insubstantial... but some estimates it's up to fifth of the US economy!).

This is why I get confused when talking to Obama supporters about the act. I mean these guys are setting themselves up for massive disappointment and disillusionment, since Republicans will come out of it with the "told you so" factor. Hopefully that'll build up the case for some real changes and not half-assed reform, but it could at the same time make an 80sesque backlash of conservativism. It's really messed up here.

Companies like McDonalds and Papa Johns don't give a single fuck about their employees and what they think because they're unorganized, you get a trouble maker and you just fire them and hire a new desperate person looking for a job. They think they can do anything and that they're entitled to everything, and paying into workers health insurance is just another cost they don't want at all. My worry is it will become more and more generalized among low-income working class people as a way for the bosses to stay competitive. Because McDonalds has an advantage if it's not paying into it but Burger King is.

[Blake's Baby]

Yes of course Obamacare is capitalist, I'm not trying to defend it or anything. But there are capitalists, all of whom I've heard coming from companies paying workers minimum wage(who never had any plans to help cover their workers health insurance, or provided a plan that they knew their workers wouldn't pay into because it's shit coverage and too expensive on minimum wage), who are cutting workers hours by 12 hours if they were lucky to work 40 hours. And that sure is a hell of a lot of people, if that's the policy at my old McDonalds I worked at(which is where I first heard about it from a former coworker) that means that's company policy for all 33 stores this douchebag owns. That's more than a thousand workers probably. And it's most likely at every McDonalds in the US.

Then there's Roundtables, Papa Johns, etc, doing the same thing, this could be millions of minimum wage workers feeling the pain because of ther bosses decision to save a few dollars at the expense of their health...

I absolutely agree that the effect on low-paid workers in precarious jobs (particularly) could be catastrophic, if employers push ahead with this drive to cut workers' hours so that they don't qualify for automatic health-insurance...


...I don't think minimum wage will be cut, especially when the president has come out saying the minimum wage needs to be increased and it being massively popular, even amongst Republicans. I don't understand why your reply to what I said essentially boils down to "capitalists are doing it wrong they're should be trying to cut wages instead" :confused:

... and not very successfully trying to show that such a move is ideologically-driven not any 'rational' (as rational as capitalism gets anyway) attempt to do what's best for the capitalist class as a whole. It would make more sense, rom the capitalists' point of view, to argue that minimum wage should be reduced to avoid 'paying twice'; they're not doing that, they're trying to avoid paying the insurance contribution which would cost them less, on the basis that they're ideologically opposed to it. Which is kinda stupid.

[revolon]

And according to the whole situation and story, it suggests that capitalist are just concerned about their profits and costs. They have no interest with what employees are getting and what they should be provided to earn a good hand.

[one10]

Obamacare is just as useless as Barack Obama is. There are too many loop holes for corporations to exploit in America's unregulated capitalist system. No matter who the president is and which policies/laws they push, the capitalists always win because the system in this country is designed for just that.

I believe this country to be a corporate dictatorship in which the elected politicians are nothing more than a facade to the illusion of a democracy that gives majority of Americans a false sense of power.

[Comrade Alex]

Obama care is just a petty bourgeois attempt to stay in power
Its to little to late the democratic party of Kennedy is gone and has been absorbed by sellouts and fake liberals
Republicans are terrified of Obamacare I can't wait to see thier faces when
The proletariat seize control and a real socialist healthcare system is implemented