There are thousands and thousands of employees across the country who have something to be very thankful for this Thanksgiving—new employer sponsored health insurance.
According to Bernstein Research there has been a 14 percent increase in businesses with fewer than 10 employees offering health insurance to their workers compared to last year. The authors of the study credit the business health insurance tax credits that went into effect this year as part of the new health care law.
Small businesses are not being burdened by the Affordable Care Act (ACA). They and their employees are benefiting from it.
Maybe that’s why health care reform—even after the health insurance industry paid the U.S. Chamber $86 million last year to convince Congress and the public that reform was evil socialism; and the U.S. Chamber’s lap dog, the National Federation of Independent Business, warned the country ad nausea of non-existent small business mandates in the legislation—wasn’t the all powerful voter issue predicted by Senator Jim “Waterloo” DeMint . Only 17 percent of voters mentioned health care as one of their issues affecting their vote. The economy was the dominant issue.
But even with this good news of more small businesses now being able to afford health insurance because of the ACA tax credits, the repeal of the reform is still being threatened by the empowered GOP in Congress.
What they are proposing is a $4 billion tax increase on all the small businesses that are and will be using the tax credits.
We didn’t vote for that either, did we?
Happy Thanksgiving!