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Americans are all proudly standing behind their leader at difficult moments.

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A new Gallup poll of small-business owners indicates that Obamacare is having a dramatic and deleterious effect on Americans’ employment prospects.  More than 40 percent of small-business owners say that Obamacare has caused them to freeze hiring, while nearly a fifth say that it has caused them to cut existing workers.  According to the poll, 41 percent of small-business owners have frozen hiring, while 19 percent have “reduced the number of employees [they] have in [their] business as a specific result of the Affordable Care Act [Obamacare]” (italics added).

The Gallup poll was commissioned by Littler Mendelson, a firm specializing in employment law.  Steven Friedman, an attorney for the firm, said of the results, “We were startled.”  He added that these are “some pretty startling answers.”

Just 9 percent of the 603 employers surveyed by Gallup said Obamacare will be good for their business, compared to 48 percent who said it will be bad.  Just 5 percent said Obamacare will lower health costs, while 55 percent said it will raise them.  Just 13 percent said Obamacare will improve the quality of health care, versus 52 percent who said it will diminish it.

Fully three-eighths (38 percent) of small-business owners said that, because of Obamacare, they “have pulled back on their plans to grow their business.”

In addition to these results, 18 percent of small-business owners say they have already cut their workers’ hours back to part-time levels in anticipation of Obamacare’s effects.  Moreover, 24 percent “are weighing whether to drop insurance coverage.”

Obamacare’s federally required insurance has to cover more things (including birth control, sterilization, and the abortion drug ella), and hence will be more expensive, than the insurance that most people choose to buy when they are left free to make such decisions for themselves.  Obamacare will mark the first time in American history that private citizens will be required to buy a product or service of the federal government’s choosing, merely as a condition of living in the United States.

Small businesses are a major driver of job growth, and this Gallup poll helps shed light on why job growth has been so abysmal during the Obamacare era.  Since the moment when the Democrats passed Obamacare in March 2010, the portion of Americans (among those who are at least 16 years old and are free to pursue employment) who have been employed has always remained under 59.0 percent — according to the federal government’s own Bureau of Labor Statistics.  In comparison, from the last few months of the Reagan administration, through the entire four years of the first Bush administration, through the entire eight years of the Clinton administration, through the entire eight years of the second Bush administration (which covered the bulk of the most recent recession), the portion of Americans who were employed was always over 60.0 percent — every single month, for more than 20 consecutive years.  Again, that’s according to the federal government’s own tallies.

Perhaps there’s a reason why this has been the worst economic recovery in the past six decades — and perhaps that reason, or at least the core of it, is Obamacare.

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fred79 said:

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Americans are all proudly standing behind their leader at difficult moments.

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i don't think americans stand behind their leader(s) when the leader(s) in question are corrupt, sal. i think they stand behind their country, and the leader is backed by default.

i don't personally know anyone who liked either bush OR obama. but we all like our country. i think that is the difference, at least with americans. i can't speak for the french, i don't know any outside this forum.

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artu said:

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fred79 said:

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Americans are all proudly standing behind their leader at difficult moments.

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i don't think americans stand behind their leader(s) when the leader(s) in question are corrupt, sal. i think they stand behind their country, and the leader is backed by default.

i don't personally know anyone who liked either bush OR obama. but we all like our country. i think that is the difference, at least with americans. i can't speak for the french, i don't know any outside this forum.

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If you don't approve Bush or Obama, why stand behind their decisions in the name of country? How is that kind of patriotism different than nepotism. People should only stand by things they actually agree on. If you don't approve your country's politics on something, you shouldn't support it. That kind of loyalty is robotic to me.

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artu said:

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Dude, you say the leader is backed by default. Loving your country is a feeling not necessarily a political stance. If you turn it into that,  it becomes a matter of, quoting your president, "you are either with us or against us" which is the perfect mentality to stop using your own head and start taking sides just because you're told it's the loyal thing to do.

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no, it doesn't. there were many soldiers who were against the war in iraq, yet they still deployed there.

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so, let me ask you a question, artu. do you like the country you're in? and if not, why not move to another one, more fitting with what you believe in?

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artu said:

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But if you are against the war in Iraq and you enlist anyway out of loyalty, that is obedience rather than loyalty. What are you loyal to, if you think the war is wrong for your country?

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Labor unions are among the key institutions responsible for the passage of Obamacare. They spent tons of money electing Democrats to Congress in 2006 and 2008, and fought hard to push the health law through the legislature in 2009 and 2010. But now, unions are waking up to the fact that Obamacare is heavily disruptive to the health benefits of their members.

Last Thursday, representatives of three of the nation’s largest unions fired off a letter to Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi, warning that Obamacare would “shatter not only our hard-earned health benefits, but destroy the foundation of the 40 hour work week that is the backbone of the American middle class.”

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Public hospitals in cash-strapped European Union countries are denying patients access to healthcare under the European Health Insurance Card or EHIC, according to healthcare insurers. Patients who present their insurance card hoping for care in public hospitals are increasingly being treated as private patients and given a final bill up to four times as high, say insurers in Belgium. The practice is most widespread in Spain but has reportedly spread to Greece, Portugal, Italy and Romania - where health system are under financial stress.

When arriving at the accident and emergency ward of a public hospital, patients presenting an EHIC are asked if they have additional private insurance. If they do, they are treated as private patients. "This is a clear violation of citizens' rights to use the card," says Christian Horemans, international affairs expert with Mutualités Libres - a Belgian insurer. "European Community law says public hospitals are obliged to accept these cards."

Patients refused access to largely free public care are redirected in many cases to Gestitursa, which is operating in several European countries – according to Horemans. On its webpage, Gestitursa says it specialises in "administration and resolution of problems not directly connected to healthcare". It provides "a double service, to the patient on one hand and to the insurance company on the other". The company did not respond to a request for comment.

Increasingly frequent refusals risk jeopardising the health insurance scheme that has protected tourists since the 1970s, Horemans tells PublicServiceEurope.com. "We are crossing our fingers now because the holiday season is coming."

Patients diverted to private healthcare can have a nasty shock as in some cases they are presented with the entire bill for their treatment, says Geert Messiaen - secretary general of Belgium's Union Nationale des Mutualités Libérales, an umbrella group of 10 health insurers. They are expected to settle in full and then enter a claim with their insurer when they get back home. "It is possible in public hospitals to be treated as a private patient and, in these cases, the health insurance card is not accepted and the patient must settle the bill in full," Messiaen says.

Refusing to accept the European card - one of the basic benefits of the common market - is said to be a phenomenon that has sprung up in public hospitals over the last two months. But it follows other reports of reduced benefits for the many retirees who have flocked to Spain over the last two decades. The health insurance card used to cover both emergency care and treatment for chronic illnesses, says Horemans. But over the last two years, Spanish hospitals have refused to cover chronic conditions. Pharmacies are also reported to be clamping down. Tourists are finding they have to pay full price for their medicine, when at home they would pay a subsidised price.

The European Commission says it is on the case after having received "an increasing number of complaints" regarding Spain. "Many of these hospitals, we understand, provide both private and public healthcare and some tourists say they have been pushed to accept private treatment and to use private travel insurance," says commission spokesman Jonathan Todd. "People should ask for confirmation that the treatment they are receiving is part of the public healthcare system."

Brussels "is in discussions with the Spanish authorities about how to deal with this problem" says Todd. "If a person's European health card is refused for public healthcare in another member state during a temporary stay, then this is most likely a breach of EU law."

The unspoken reality is that healthcare cuts in near-bankrupt countries have often been imposed by Brussels acting in coordination with other bodies such as the International Monetary Fund. By making tourists pay more than locals for their healthcare, countries such as Spain are getting their own back. The result of this struggle could be the collapse of the European health insurance system for tourists.

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Traditional sources of funding health care in Europe have been branded obsolete and unaffordable. The need for innovation has never been stronger and while some countries, such as the Netherlands and Switzerland, are embracing change, others are resisting any significant overhaul. Indeed, the notion of free, state-backed health care is ingrained in the psyche of most Europeans.

Reformers want to reduce the state's role in health-care delivery and introduce a competitive element. Those against change are adamant that a health-care system without state involvement is health care without a heart. Good for the rich, calamitous for the poor. It is an issue heavily clouded by emotion. But many feel that without innovation, crumbling state-backed systems will collapse as they struggle to cope with aging populations, soaring overheads and, more recently, mounting budget deficits.

The statistics paint a bleak picture. According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the European Union will see an increase in health expenditure of 350% by 2050, whereas at the same time the economy is only set to expand by 180%.
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The British government has decided that it needs to cut millions of operations because the public system cannot afford them. This is coming soon to a hospital or doctor's office near you.

According to the Daily Mail, Britain's National Health Service is "preparing to cut millions of operations" so that it can save $29 billion by 2014. Procedures that will be "decommissioned," if we may borrow a particularly descriptive term used by one doctor, include hip replacements for obese patients, some operations for hernias and gallstones, and treatments for varicose veins, ear and nose problems, and cataract surgery.

Thus is the future of all socialized medicine. Bureaucratic rationing of treatment is inevitable. No system can forever meet the demand of "free" care. Jeff Taylor of the Economic Voice clarified the problem when he wrote last week that "the U.K. is broke."

"Our whole society and way of life is now built on the shaky foundation of debt," he writes in response to the NHS cuts. "Our hospitals, schools, armed forces, police, prisons and social services are founded on debt. In truth we have not yet paid for the operations that have already taken place."

As former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher famously — and fittingly — said: The problem with socialism is you eventually run out of other people's money to spend. This is a universal truth, more universal than the health care provided in Britain. To trifle with it, ignore it, disrespect it, attempt to repeal it or arrogantly try to bypass it will always lead to trouble.

Yet the political left continually makes those mistakes and operates as if governments will never run out of other people's money. Until it does. And then the government has to make cuts and ration the benefits.

What have the congressional Democrats who rammed through their health care overhaul been watching over the years as both hard and soft socialist governments have either collapsed, continued to bring misery or become unsustainable? Despite ample evidence that a welfare state cannot thrive, these lawmakers have forced on the country a "reform" that will load Americans with a burden they will not long be able to bear.

Though it was sold to the public as a plan that, at $940 billion over the first decade, would bring down the deficit, the real cost for the initial 10 years could be as much as $2.5 trillion, including mandates placed on the private sector, according to an estimate by the Cato Institute.

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