Warner Todd Huston
Govt healthcare will give us ALL pay cuts
FacebookTwitter
By Warner Todd Huston
December 17, 2009

Big Labor has, for the most part, fallen all over itself to help its patron President get his Obamacare policies passed in Congress spending millions to do so. If Obamacare should pass many millions will lose their healthcare and will be forced into government healthcare. According to the CBO at least 10 million will lose their insurance in short order. The CBO is likely lowballing the number, too.

That means many people that now have insurance through their employers will lose it and, thereby, lose some of their compensation and that brings up a major point that few people are talking about. I've mentioned it offhandedly in the past, but reader D. Harrison brought the issue before me in a recent email and I thought we should make it a point here.

Mr. Harrison wrote:

    Why is no one ever talking about compensation for employees whose employers pull the plug on healthcare benefits plans? If I were taking home an annual salary of $80,000 and had a "Cadillac" healthcare plan worth, say, $20,000, then when my employer drops all healthcare benefits (as he surely will when the "public 'option'" becomes the default), should I not be compensated by being given $100,000 for my annual wage?

    If not, then not only does my overall compensation for my labor drop, but in addition, I will have to pay higher taxes to cover my "free" healthcare. In the end, I get hit with a double-whammy financially ... and a triple whammy when you figure in the fact that healthcare will become less available (doctor shortages, increased waiting times, and denials of procedures and medications)!

Well, of course the answer to Mr. Harrison's question is a basic "no." Employees will not be re-compensated should their employers dump their healthcare plans forcing employees on the government plan.

No employer is going to cancel a healthcare plan and then give their employees a raise in hourly pay rates. It just isn't going to happen. Once an employer dumps a healthcare plan and employees lose that as part of their employment compensation no other compensation will be offered it its stead.

That means that Obama will be causing employees all across the country to lose money and lose benefits, not to see them returned... ever.

Then we add the rise in taxes, as Mr. Harrison notes, and that'll mean that Obama will be responsible for bringing our lifestyles crashing down. A vote for Obamacare means to cut your own pay and raise your own taxes, folks. It's just that simple.

© Warner Todd Huston

 

The views expressed by RenewAmerica columnists are their own and do not necessarily reflect the position of RenewAmerica or its affiliates.
(See RenewAmerica's publishing standards.)


Warner Todd Huston

Warner Todd Huston's thoughtful commentary, sometimes irreverent often historically based, is featured on many websites... (more)

More by this author

 

Stephen Stone
HAPPY EASTER: A message to all who love our country and want to help save it

Stephen Stone
The most egregious lies Evan McMullin and the media have told about Sen. Mike Lee

Siena Hoefling
Protect the Children: Update with VIDEO

Stephen Stone
FLASHBACK to 2020: Dems' fake claim that Trump and Utah congressional hopeful Burgess Owens want 'renewed nuclear testing' blows up when examined

Cliff Kincaid
Stop Islamic terrorism in New York City

Steve A. Stone
The Slow Coup, Part 25

Rev. Mark H. Creech
Charlie Kirk: A martyr for faith and freedom

Victor Sharpe
The day that broke our hearts also revealed the strength of our heroes

Jerry Newcombe
With honor flights, patriotism is alive and well

Pete Riehm
Democrats scream democracy is dying, while Trump is saving the Republic

Curtis Dahlgren
'Equity' in incarceration = INjustice for Asians and Caucasians

Cliff Kincaid
When 'health policy' means disease and death

Joan Swirsky
A fitting psychiatric diagnosis

Tom DeWeese
Urgent alert! A new fight to stop carbon capture pipelines

Victor Sharpe
How Israel denies itself sovereignty in its ancestral and Biblical heartland

Rev. Mark H. Creech
Chasing waterfalls: The folly of the Powerball dream
  More columns

Cartoons


Click for full cartoon
More cartoons

Columnists

Matt C. Abbott
Chris Adamo
Russ J. Alan
Bonnie Alba
Chuck Baldwin
Kevin J. Banet
J. Matt Barber
Fr. Tom Bartolomeo
. . .
[See more]

Sister sites