Giving insurance isn't always the obvious "right thing to do". Low paid employees might prefer the cost of the insurance in cash, they might need it to get by and/or they might be covered by someone else's policy, or for government provided insurance, or insurance through their school or some other organization. The tax deductibility of employer provided insurance makes this less likely to be the case, since it means you can't give them the full value (the insurance is untaxed, but if you give them what you pay for it, they will have to pay taxes on it), but it would still be true for many. Many of the uninsured can afford insurance and choose not to get it. (Many more are eligible for government provided or subsidized insurance and just haven't signed up yet.).
Strictly from the perspective of the companies bottom line (which always is going to have some impact on the decision, and should) it makes sense to fire the nine people. This is what's known as a perverse incentive. A lot of efforts to help run in to problems with perverse incentives. For example people can lose their jobs because of minimum wages, people can be reluctant to hire disabled people because the Americans with Disabilities Act entitles them to sue, protection of endangered species can provide and incentive to "shoot, shovel, and shut-up", etc. Which doesn't mean that any time there is a perverse incentive problem that you automatically reject the plan, just that at the margin you get a lot of response to incentives and they should be a serious part of the consideration of any new policy.
Other incentive problems with the PPACA include the obvious one that people have to wait for coverage until they have a condition (the mandate/tax, not being large or unavoidable enough to overcome the perverse incentive), and the fact that the penalty/tax is lower than the cost of insuring employees, and that the coverage requirements increase the cost of insuring employees, giving the marginal company an incentive to not pay for insurance.
Even if the employer cares more about the employees than his own financial situation, if his business fails because of extra costs, he's hardly helping the employees. Many restaurants or other small businesses have slim margins and a lot of competition.
Your view of people as cattle is far too cynical.
And your claim that such is his view is far too unsupported, to make posting it reasonable. |
