Freedom Line Blog

A new Gallup poll of 603 small business owners shows how ObamaCare is impacting the job market, and with it, future economic growth.

Some of the key findings include:

·    41% of businesses have frozen hiring
·    19% answered “yes” when asked if they had “reduced the number of employees you have in your business as a specific result of the Affordable Care Act” (i.e. ObamaCare)
·    38% said they “have pulled back on their plans to grow their businesses” because of ObamaCare
·    52% say they expect a reduction in the quality of health care under ObamaCare

The main policy goal of ObamaCare is to make health insurance, and with it health care, more available to people. Doing this, however, will not make either insurance or care more affordable.

The best way to make health care more available is to make it universal, preferably by a provider who isn’t constrained by cost. That would be the government. By increasing the cost beyond what companies can pay and stay in business, ObamaCare will move millions of Americans from a private sector model to a public provider model in just a few years’ time. That helps liberals achieve their main political goal: Single-payer health care, or if you prefer, socialized medicine.

With ObamaCare going online in 2014, the movement of workers from private to public health care provision will complicate the reform job conservatives need to accomplish. Repeal of the law is necessary, but unless there are other reforms in place that reroute severed workers into new private sector models, it won’t be sufficient. Hopefully, a conservative consensus forms around a replacement option soon.

Otherwise, Western Europe here we come!

H/T: CNBC