William McBride Andrew Lundeen @ Tax Foundation:
According to the Committee on Ways and Means and the IRS, compliance with the new healthcare law will take 80 million man-hours per year. Perhaps that sounds like a successful jobs program, as it will keep 40,000 people fully employed, filling out paperwork and sorting through a confounding pile of government regulations. Only problem is, that work is entirely wasteful and creates zero wealth for America as a whole. It would be better for America and for the 40,000 workers to do something useful, like build the empire state building 11 times over, to use the Ways and Means example.
But might it put otherwise unemployed people to work? No, not to any large degree and not any time soon. Instead, it mostly results in a shift of employment from productive activities to unproductive activities, from the private sector to the public sector, and a general cluttering up of the tax code.
Think of a small business trying to comply with Form 8941 – the Credit for Small Employer Health Insurance Premiums, which went into effect in 2010. This form alone takes 40 million man-hours to complete. As a result almost no one does. The Government Accountability Office finds that fewer than 10 percent of eligible businesses take advantage of this credit. But the real problem is that some businesses do try to comply, meaning they pay employees to fill out paperwork rather than build, create, and develop valuable products for customers. The IRS in turn pays employees to interpret, implement, adjudicate, and enforce this law. A virtuous circle, except someone has to pay the IRS. Guess who.
The problem is worse than it seems. 40,000 people? Fully employed?
It’s actually comprised of businesses, both in the healthcare industry and out of it, having to allot some of their time, already stretched thin, in places, to complying with, and administering, the law itself. It’s comprised of lawyers poring through the new regulations, the vast majority of which have not been written yet, on behalf of those businesses ensuring that they will not fall afoul of any law or regulation.
And yes, of course, some of that hourly total will be applied to new jobs. Full-time jobs. In the government. And some out of it.
All to ensure that compliance with Obamacare is complete.
Imagine, though, your human resources department, and the hours they will have to apply to compliance with Obamacare. Hours that may take away from working on your behalf, that would make your life easier at work. Or more productive. Or more beneficial.
What about a doctor’s office? Will the hours applied towards compliance with Obamacare take away from the quality of the actual purpose for your visit? Will the doctor apply smaller allotments of time towards each patient, as some of their daily time be focused on new regulations they haven’t seen yet? What if they miss something important, because instead of 15 minutes, or a 1/2 hour, they have 5 minutes less to assess your condition?
Or the medical appliance business, that has to devote more time and energy towards complying with some regulation concerning the product they make? Will that product now be made with cheaper materials, or with less quality assurance, so that the business can maintain a profit, and hence, stay in business?
All of these man-hours spent ensuring compliance with Obamacare is sure to affect the actual quality of not only your healthcare, but also many other aspects of life. It would be hard not to.
Far as I see… this has effectively shut down new hires in small businesses across the country. New hires are like plutonium today. Never seen such a situation.
I will do what these pigs say, and pay what these pigs say… out of what they can find after I loose a gunfight.
Nothing more… Nothing less.
Lose… every time.