Last September, Laborers' International Union of North America (LIUNA) President Terry O'Sullivan told AFL-CIO convention attendees, "We'll be damned if we're going to lose our health insurance because of unintended consequences in the law!" Go To Site

Amidst Obamacare’s 3,000 pages lies a regulation that may squeeze craft beer brewers out of business. Why would federal healthcare bureaucrats want to meddle in this thriving industry? Well, regulators claim that American consumers are not healthy because they are blissfully unaware of the amount of calories in beer. -Dennis Cakert
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Still, Christensen once supported Obamacare -- also called the Affordable Care Act -- because he likes to help people... The only problem? He didn't realize how much it would cost him, and he's horrified by how much it's going to cost his employees. "Some of those regulations about what the costs of my employees are going to be are horrendous, and I can't understand the math," he said. "Listening to the insurance providors and people providing webinars on how to figure out what our costs are going to be in this program, it's gigantically troublesome to me." Not only does the math make his accountant shudder, Christensen is fairly certain that his employees are going to totally lose all coverage, he said. Go To Site

Democrat, Liberal, Union, Obama, Character, Oops, Greed, Immigration, Socialism, Healthcare

In what is being reported as a surprise move, the 40,000 members of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) announced that they have formally ended their association with the AFL-CIO, one of the nation's largest private sector unions. The Longshoremen citied Obamacare and immigration reform as two important causes of their disaffiliation... The ILWU President made it clear they are for a single-payer, nationalized healthcare policy and are upset with the AFL-CIO for going along with Obama on the confiscatory tax on their "Cadillac" healthcare plan.

Democrat, Liberal, Union, Incompetence, Obama, Oops, Socialism, Healthcare, Jobs

AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka said Thursday that Obamacare’s negative effect on creating more part-time hires by employers trying to avoid the mandate was a consequence “no one intended” that still needed to be addressed... “Employers are trying to plan their future by creating a work force that gets 29-and-a-half hours or less a week so they don’t have to pay health care,” Trumka said.

Democrat, Liberal, Obama, Financial, Oops, Economy, Socialism, Healthcare

Delta Air Lines has issued an urgent warning about the impact of ObamaCare, claiming the law's implementation will contribute to a roughly $100 million increase in health care costs next year alone.
The astonishing figure was included in a letter from Delta executive Robert Kight to officials in the Obama administration. A representative with Delta confirmed the authenticity of the letter to FoxNews.com.

Democrat, Liberal, Incompetence, Obama, Financial, Oops, Socialism, Healthcare

The University of Virginia will no longer provide insurance coverage to the working spouses of its employees, a move university officials hope will save “millions of dollars.” Starting Jan. 1, employee spouses who have health insurance coverage under their employers cannot get coverage under UVa’s plan. If the spouse is covered under a plan defined by the Affordable Care Act as “minimum value” and “affordable,” he or she will no longer be eligible.

United Parcel Service Inc. plans to remove thousands of spouses from its medical plan because they are eligible for coverage elsewhere. The Atlanta-based logistics company points to the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, as a big reason for the decision, reports Kaiser Health News. According to Kaiser, UPS told white-collar workers two months ago that 15,000 working spouses eligible for coverage by their own employers would be excluded from the UPS plan in 2014. Go To Site

Democrat, Liberal, Incompetence, Obama, Financial, Oops, Socialism, Healthcare, Jobs

Reuters reported Wednesday that, while the US economy created around 1 million new jobs this year, three-quarters of these jobs are part-time. Most are in the low-wage retail and restaurant sector. Concerns over ObamaCare and its health insurance mandate is the prime driver of the push to part-time employment. "[Businesses] have put some of the full-time positions on hold and are hiring part-time employees so they won't have to pay out the benefits," Client Staffing Solutions' Darin Hovendick told Reuters. "There is so much uncertainty. It's really tough to design a budget when you don't know the final cost involved."

Democrat, Liberal, Government, Incompetence, Obama, Financial, Socialism, Healthcare, Jobs

NBC News spoke with almost 20 small businesses and other entities from Maine to California, and almost all said that because of the new law they’d be cutting back hours for some employees – an unintended consequence of the new law.

Democrat, Liberal, Obama, Funny, Oops, Socialism, Healthcare

Under a wrinkle that dates back to enactment of the law, members of Congress and thousands of their aides are required to get their coverage through new state-based markets known as insurance exchanges. But the law does not provide any obvious way for the federal government to continue paying its share of the premiums for the comprehensive coverage. If the government cannot do so, it could mean an additional expense of $5,000 a year for individuals and $11,000 for families under some of the most popular plans.

Democrat, Liberal, Incompetence, Obama, Financial, Oops, Socialism, Healthcare, Regulation

The nation's largest health insurer, UnitedHealth Group Inc., is leaving California's individual health insurance market, the second major company to exit in advance of major changes under the Affordable Care Act. UnitedHealth said it had notified state regulators that it would leave the state's individual market at year-end and force about 8,000 customers to find new coverage. Last month, Aetna Inc., the nation's third-largest health insurer, made a similar move affecting about 50,000 existing policyholders.

Some Americans could see their insurance bills double next year as the health care overhaul law expands coverage to millions of people. The nation’s big health insurers say they expect premiums — or the cost for insurance coverage — to rise from 20 to 100 percent for millions of people due to changes that will occur when key provisions of the Affordable Care Act roll out in January 2014. Go To Site

Democrat, Liberal, Incompetence, Obama, Financial, Oops, Economy, Socialism, Healthcare, Jobs

One of the unintended consequences, say some industry insiders, is that it could lead to productions running to foreign countries, given that ACA doesn't apply to U.S. citizens working abroad. Some also say the number of production days in the U.S. are likely to be cut due to ACA because there's a 90-day waiting period before productions must either pay a penalty or offer health insurance to full-time workers.

Democrat, Liberal, Incompetence, Obama, Financial, Funny, Oops, Socialism, Healthcare

Dozens of lawmakers and aides are so afraid that their health insurance premiums will skyrocket next year thanks to Obamacare that they are thinking about retiring early or just quitting. The fear: Government-subsidized premiums will disappear at the end of the year under a provision in the health care law that nudges aides and lawmakers onto the government health care exchanges, which could make their benefits exorbitantly expensive.

Democrat, Liberal, Obama, Financial, Oops, Socialism, Healthcare, Jobs

The nation's largest movie theater chain has cut the hours of thousands of employees, saying in a company memo that ObamaCare requirements are to blame. Regal Entertainment Group, which operates more than 500 theaters in 38 states, last month rolled back shifts for non-salaried workers to 30 hours per week, putting them under the threshold at which employers are required to provide health insurance. The Nashville-based company said in a letter to managers that the move was a direct result of ObamaCare.

Democrat, Liberal, Government, Incompetence, Obama, Oops, Socialism, Healthcare

Universal Orlando plans to stop offering medical insurance to part-time employees beginning next year, a move the resort says has been forced by the federal government's health-care overhaul. The giant theme-park resort, which generates more than $1 billion in annual revenue, began informing employees this month that it will offer health-insurance to part-timers "only until December 31, 2013."

Pet owners listen up: You may want to start saving more money for veterinarian care this year. The reason goes all the way back to Washington and an unintended consequence from medical reform. Dog owner Lori Heiselman was surprised where her veterinarian posted a warning on Facebook. The notice read: “Because medical equipment and supplies will be going up in cost, that extra expense will have to passed on to the customers.” Go To Site

Democrat, Liberal, Government, Incompetence, Obama, Oops, Socialism, Healthcare

President Obama's health care law will push 7 million people out of their job-based insurance coverage — nearly twice the previous estimate, according to the latest estimates from the Congressional Budget Office released Tuesday. CBO said that this year's tax cuts have changed the incentives for businesses and made it less attractive to pay for insurance, meaning fewer will decide to do so.

Democrat, Liberal, Tax, Obama, Oops, Socialism, Healthcare, Jobs

A medical company is blaming President Obama’s health care law for the layoffs of nearly 100 people. Smith & Nephew says a 2.3 percent excise tax on medical devices in the “Obamacare” law caused the layoffs in the Memphis and Andover, Mass., offices. “The nearly $30 billion tax on medical devices that took effect Jan. 1, 2013, has impacted a number of companies across the U.S.,” the company said in a statement to WHBQ-TV.

Democrat, Liberal, Incompetence, Obama, Financial, Oops, Socialism, Healthcare

A southwestern Pennsylvania hospital will stop delivering babies after March 31 because its obstetricians are either leaving or refocusing their practices, and because hospital officials believe they can't afford it based on projected reimbursements under looming federal health care reforms.

Government, Financial, Oops, Socialism, Healthcare, Jobs

A fast-food chain is slashing employee hours so franchise owners don’t have to pay health benefits. Around 100 local Wendy’s workers have learned their hours are being cut. A spokesperson says a new health care law is to blame... The company has announced that all non-management positions will have their hours reduced to 28 a week. Gary Burdette, Vice President of Operations for the local franchise, says the cuts are coming because the new Affordable Health Care Act requires employers to offer health insurance to employees working 32-38 hours a week.

Dan Drennen says his franchisees are sitting on their hands. According to the general manager of Visiting Angels Living Assistance Services, multi-unit franchisees are withholding expansion in the face of the Affordable Care Act’s employer mandate. “The cost becomes exponentially greater,” Drennen said. “They are subject to the ACA and it’s a law of diminishing returns.” Go To Site

Democrat, Liberal, Tax, Obama, Financial, Oops, Socialism, Healthcare, Regulation, Jobs

Andre DiMino has been running medical device company ADM Tronics since his father, who founded the decades-old firm, died in 2001. He's never laid off anybody. "These people are like family with us," he said. The boss might not be able to hold out much longer. Come Jan. 1, an ObamaCare-tied tax specific to his industry is expected to go into effect. Though the Obama administration has downplayed the impact, DiMino calls it "devastating." "I think after all of these decades of not laying people off, I think we may have to face that," DiMino told FoxNews.com. He predicted he might have to immediately lay off three people in his manufacturing division and possibly more after that.

Democrat, Liberal, Government, Obama, Financial, Oops, Socialism, Healthcare

Health insurance premiums may as much as double for some small businesses and individual buyers in the U.S. when the Affordable Care Act’s major provisions start in 2014, Aetna Inc. (AET)’s chief executive officer said. While subsidies in the law will shield some people, other consumers who make too much for assistance are in for “premium rate shock,” Mark Bertolini, who runs the third-biggest U.S. health-insurance company, told analysts yesterday at a conference in New York.

Democrat, Liberal, Government, Obama, Financial, Oops, Socialism, Healthcare

Health insurer Blue Shield of California wants to raise rates as much as 20% for some individual policyholders, prompting calls for the nonprofit to use some of its record-high reserve of $3.9 billion to hold down premiums... The company also expects higher costs from an influx of new customers under the federal healthcare law in 2014... Even with these proposed rate increases, Blue Shield said, it expects to lose money in the individual insurance market in 2013.

Democrat, Liberal, Government, Obama, Oops, Socialism, Healthcare, Regulation

Walmart, the nation’s largest private employer, plans to begin denying health insurance to newly hired employees who work fewer than 30 hours a week, according to a copy of the company’s policy obtained by The Huffington Post... Labor and health care experts portrayed Walmart’s decision to exclude workers from its medical plans as an attempt to limit costs while taking advantage of the national health care reform known as Obamacare.

President Obama's election victory ensured his Affordable Care Act would remain the centerpiece of his first term in power - but that has left some business owners baulking at the extra cost Obamcare will bring. Florida based restaurant boss John Metz, who runs approximately 40 Denny's and owns the Hurricane Grill & Wings franchise has decided to offset that by adding a five percent surcharge to customers' bills and will reduce his employees' hours. Go To Site

Hypocrisy, Incompetence, Oops, Academia, Greed, Socialism, Healthcare

Pennsylvania's Community College of Allegheny County (CCAC) is slashing the hours of 400 adjunct instructors, support staff, and part-time instructors to dodge paying for Obamacare. "It's kind of a double whammy for us because we are facing a legal requirement [under the new law] to get health care and if the college is reducing our hours, we don't have the money to pay for it," said adjunct biology professor Adam Davis.

Democrat, Liberal, Obama, Brilliance, Narrative, Oops, Socialism, Healthcare, Regulation, Jobs

Karen Mills, President Obama's Small Business Administration chief, claimed this morning on MSNBC that she has not heard one case of Obamacare hurting small business: "You know, I travel all around the country, every week I go to a different part of the country. I'm with small businesses. And I'm not hearing that," Mills said in response to a question about how she would explain employers cutting work hours for employees because of Obamacare regulations. "You've never heard that?" host Joe Scarborough responded. "You need to talk to your staff and tell them to get you out of the bubble, because we are hearing that all the time." Mills continue, "We are out there every single day--" And then Scarborough, still surprised, interrupted to ask again, "Have you never heard that before?"

Democrat, Liberal, Obama, Brilliance, Oops, Socialism, Healthcare, Jobs

In an experiment apparently aimed at keeping down the cost of health-care reform, Orlando-based Darden Restaurants has stopped offering full-time schedules to many hourly workers in at least a few Olive Gardens, Red Lobsters and LongHorn Steakhouses.

Democrat, Liberal, Obama, Oops, Socialism, Healthcare

WASHINGTON (CBSDC) — Papa John’s warns it will have to raise the price of its pizzas due to President Obama’s health care law... “We’re not supportive of Obamacare, like most businesses in our industry. But our business model and unit economics are about as ideal as you can get for a food company to absorb Obamacare,” Schnatter said in a conference call during last week’s shareholder’s meeting, according to Politico. Schnatter later added: “If Obamacare is in fact not repealed, we will find tactics to shallow out any Obamacare costs and core strategies to pass that cost onto consumers in order to protect our shareholders best interests.”

The owner of Olive Garden and Red Lobster will shift more employees to part-time status in a trial designed to minimize the impact of new requirements imposed by the Affordable Care Act. Darden Restaurants, which owns the two chains among others, employs approximately 180,000 people, and will test the part-time strategy in four markets. Go To Site

Democrat, Liberal, Tax, Government, Obama, Financial, Oops, Socialism, Healthcare

Business owners will pay $4 billion more in taxes under President Obama’s Affordable Care Act (ACA) than the Congressional Budget Office had previously expected.

Liberal, Incompetence, Financial, Socialism, Healthcare

A Catholic university in Ohio said Tuesday it is being forced to end a student health insurance program over increased costs it claims are associated with President Obama’s contraception mandate and other provisions of the health care overhaul.

Franciscan University in Steubensville, Ohio, said it has so far excluded contraceptive services and products from its health insurance policy for students and will not participate in a plan that “requires us to violate the consistent teachings of the Catholic Church on the sacredness of human life.”

Liberal, Oops, Socialism, Healthcare

Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) thought President Obama was making a "mistake" in pressing for healthcare reform in 2010 and urged the White House to back off after Democrats lost their 60-seat majority in the Senate, the congressman tells New York magazine. "I think we paid a terrible price for healthcare," Frank told the magazine in a lengthy interview as he prepares to retire at the end of his 16th term.

Democrat, Liberal, Government, Incompetence, Obama, Socialism, Healthcare

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- Doctors in America are harboring an embarrassing secret: Many of them are going broke. This quiet reality, which is spreading nationwide, is claiming a wide range of casualties, including family physicians, cardiologists and oncologists... Doctors list shrinking insurance reimbursements, changing regulations, rising business and drug costs among the factors preventing them from keeping their practices afloat.

Premiums for employer-provided family coverage rose $3,065 — 24% — from 2008 to 2012, the Kaiser survey found. Even if you start counting in 2009, premiums have climbed $2,370. What's more, premiums climbed faster in Obama's four years than they did in the previous four under President Bush, the survey data show. There's no question about what Obama was promising the country, since he repeated it constantly during his 2008 campaign. In a debate with Sen. John McCain, for example, Obama said "the only thing we're going to try to do is lower costs so that those cost savings are passed onto you. And we estimate we can cut the average family's premium by about $2,500 per year." Go To Site

Democrat, Editorial, Liberal, Government, Incompetence, Obama, Oops, Socialism, Healthcare

For example, it says, the law may “remove members of Congress and Congressional staff” from their current coverage, in the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program, before any alternatives are available. The confusion raises the inevitable question: If they did not know exactly what they were doing to themselves, did lawmakers who wrote and passed the bill fully grasp the details of how it would influence the lives of other Americans?

Democrat, Liberal, Government, Incompetence, Obama, Socialism, Healthcare

Not one of its major programs has gotten started, and already the wheels are starting to come off of Obamacare. The administration’s own actuary reported on Thursday that millions of people could lose their health insurance, that health-care costs will rise faster than they would have if the law hadn’t passed, and that the overhaul will mean that people will have a harder and harder time finding physicians to see them.

Democrat, Liberal, Government, Incompetence, Obama, Oops, Socialism, Healthcare

President Barack Obama's health care law would let several million middle-class people get nearly free insurance meant for the poor, a twist government number crunchers say they discovered only after the complex bill was signed.

Obama, Socialism, Healthcare

WASHINGTON – AARP's endorsement helped secure passage of President Barack Obama's health care overhaul. Now the seniors' lobby is telling its employees their insurance costs will rise partly as a result of the law.

Public officials, at both the federal and the state level, are grappling with the Herculean task of implementing the law. Its internal complexity and flawed design make it a program that was built to fail. The most recent evidence of the ACA’s administrative breakdown comes via the New York Times in a story by Robert Pear—no enemy of Obamacare—who reports that the fine print of the ACA could leave the dependents of millions of low-income employees without coverage from either their employers or the ACA’s insurance exchanges. -Richard A. Epstein Go To Site

Democrat, Liberal, Government, Incompetence, Obama, Oops, Healthcare

The percentage of American adults who lack health insurance coverage has not only increased during the presidency of Barack Obama, but it has continued to increase since Obama signed his signature piece of legislation last year mandating that by 2014 every American carry health insurance, according to a Gallup survey released today.

Democrat, Liberal, Incompetence, Obama, Financial, Oops, Socialism, Healthcare

Even as leading Democrats offered assurances to the contrary, government experts repeatedly warned that a new long-term care insurance plan could go belly up, saddling taxpayers with another underfunded benefit program, according to emails disclosed by congressional investigators.

Democrat, Liberal, Government, Incompetence, Obama, Oops, Socialism, Healthcare

While only 7% of employees will be forced to switch to subsidized-exchange programs, at least 30% of companies say they will “definitely or probably” stop offering employer-sponsored coverage, according to the study published in McKinsey Quarterly.

Obama, Socialism, Healthcare

The state has given Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield the go ahead to raise premiums by as much as 47 percent for some members, and says health care reform is the reason why.

McDonald’s estimates that each restaurant will incur between $10,000 and $30,000 in added annual costs, Bensen said in response to an analyst’s question on a conference call to discuss the fast-food giant’s second-quarter results, according to an unedited transcript of the call provided by FactSet. There are about 14,000 McDonald’s restaurants in the U.S., meaning McDonald’s expects the total cost to the company and its franchisees to be in the range of $140 million to $420 million… Go To Site

Incompetence, Obama, Financial, Socialism, Healthcare

Speaking of ill-considered financial decisions made by politicians intent on their policy priorities, new emails revealed by the AP show that the administration was warned that parts of ObamaCare were a financial disaster--but plowed ahead anyway.

Government, Incompetence, Obama, Oops, Socialism, Healthcare

AARP's endorsement helped secure passage of President Barack Obama's health care overhaul. Now the seniors' lobby is telling its employees their insurance costs will rise partly as a result of the law. In an e-mail to employees, AARP says health care premiums will increase by 8 percent to 13 percent next year because of rapidly rising medical costs.

Obama, Oops, Socialism, Healthcare

In an unintended consequence of the new health care law, drug companies have begun notifying children’s hospitals around the country that they no longer qualify for large discounts on drugs used to treat rare medical conditions.

Obama, Oops, Socialism, Healthcare

"Friday [New Year's Eve] marked the last day physician-owned hospitals could get Medicare certification covering their new or expanded hospitals, one of the latest provisions of the reform law to go into effect."

About one in 10 employers plan to drop health coverage when key provisions of the new health care law kick in less than two years from now, according to a survey to be released Tuesday by the consulting company Deloitte. Nine percent of companies said they expect to stop offering coverage to their workers in the next one to three years, the Wall Street Journal reported. Around 81 percent said they would continue providing benefits and 10 percent said they weren't sure. Go To Site

Democrat, Liberal, Obama, Oops, Socialism, Healthcare

WASHINGTON—Aerospace giant Boeing is joining the list of companies that say the new health care law could have a potential downside for their workers. In a letter mailed to employees late last week, the company cited the overhaul as part of the reason it is asking some 90,000 nonunion workers to pay significantly more for their health plan next year.

Democrat, Liberal, Incompetence, Obama, Oops, Economy, Socialism, Healthcare

The cost of health insurance for many Americans this year climbed more sharply than in previous years, outstripping any growth in workers’ wages and adding more uncertainty about the pace of rising medical costs.

Obama, Socialism, Healthcare

One of the largest union-administered health-insurance funds in New York is dropping coverage for the children of more than 30,000 low-wage home attendants, union officials said. The union blamed financial problems it said were caused by the state’s health department and new national health-insurance requirements.

Obama, Socialism, Healthcare

Health insurers are asking for immediate rate hikes of more than 20 percent in Connecticut for some plans, citing rising medical costs and federal health reform laws as reasons.

Democrat, Liberal, Obama, Socialism, Healthcare

CHICAGO — Emergency rooms, the only choice for patients who can't find care elsewhere, may grow even more crowded with longer wait times under the nation's new health law. That might come as a surprise to those who thought getting 32 million more people covered by health insurance would ease ER crowding.

Incompetence, Obama, Socialism, Healthcare

Former Democratic National Committee Chairman, and doctor, Howard Dean backed a McKinsey & Co. survey today that found that almost a third of private-sector employers will drop their employee health insurance coverage when Obamacare's government-managed insurance exchanges come online.