I offer medical and dental plans to all of my employees and pay 100% of the cost.

I just received my renewal rates for next year. It has been 3 years since the ACA came into effect. Despite the rhetoric claiming insurance rates would double or triple, my medical insurance rates have risen an average of 5% per year since the ACA came into effect, the same average annual increase as before. My dental rates have actually gone down 5%.

I found that interesting, and a fact that bolsters my feeling that my political leanings should have nothing to do with the fiscal effects on my business. I've been in business for 26 years through 5 different administrations, 3 Republican and 2 Democrat. Under no administration has there been ANY effect, positive or negative, on my business. Taxes have neither gone up or down, regulations have neither become stricter or more relaxed. My conclusion after a quarter century is that my business and personal income is not effected in any way by either political party. It is safe therefore, in my opinion, to effectively ignore that aspect of either party's political rhetoric.

DS,

Political rhetoric, and the policies that derive therefrom may, not affect your business but it can and does have a lot of affect on the welfare and opportunities of many people around you.

If your business is the only thing that matters then all is well.

Wish I could say the same. I used to pay my employees insurance 100%. When the ACA came out my rates went up 50%. I decided to drop the insurance for my guy's and let them get there own. Since then my insurance for my family has gone up 30 - 40% every year. And they give me crappier insurance every year with that raise in rates.

TS,

The point I did not feel compelled to make (because this is a business forum) is that due to my conclusion, my political leanings have nothing to do with fiscal concerns and everything to do with my own moral compass.

Point well taken though, there are definitely other political issues that greatly effect my business. For the sake of my point however, I kept it narrowly focused on two issues that have been in the news recently that in my opinion are misleading as to their benefits.

Scott, you need a better agent. Every year I am provided with several comparable quotes from different insurance providers. And yes, there are some that have increased by the amounts you say. I simply choose not to buy my insurance from them.

DS,

In much the same way that people voted for Trump because he was "anybody-but-Hillary" lots of people support repealing Obamacare simply because it was promoted by Obama.

The most recent iteration offered up by the Republicans centered on block grants to the states. Under this program the individual legislatures would determine what was good for their state. They could choose to allow for pre-existing conditions or not. What constitutes a pre-existing condition could be different from state to state. Pre-natal health could be covered in some states and not in others. Women's health care options would widely differ from state to state.

The problem is that people are migratory. They move from state to state for all kinds of reasons. Sometimes it's better employment opportunities. Sometimes they move for family reasons.

What happens to a woman's health care options if she was born & raised in Oregon but got offered a job in Texas?

To quote President Trump, health care is complicated.

DS,

The way that health care is financed today puts a lot of small employers at a disadvantage relative to large employers or government entities.

A worker with a family has no choice but to work for whoever can give him the benefits he needs. A lot of times this worker is stuck in a low paying and/or uninteresting job merely because of the benefit structure.

You may be able to find an insurance company that is willing to underwrite your company's employees at a rate that is affordable to you now. If the economy turns down your prices will follow. This will have some impact on how affordable this policy is to you in the future.

How do you think your health care costs compare to Boeing? Why should their health care cost them any less than yours?

Prior to ACA our employees had a max 1500 out of pocket HSA plan. We put $500 a year for awhile into the plan so their max cash out of pocket was $1000.

Our goal was to protect our employees form a major medical bill, they had to pay the small stuff.

Now we offer a modified grandfathered HSA plan with a 3500 max out of pocket. We also offer ACA plans that are 6500, 12,700 max out of pocket plans with lower co pays.

What shop employee can afford a family max 12,700 our of pocket? What if the illness continues for 2-3 years?

So it really depends where you are as rates are locally based depending on the cost of service but the max out of pockets are the same unless you have a Cadillac plan or a subsidized plan.

Employees with wives that work are over the limit for subsides in a lot of case and absolutely get squeezed by the max out of pocket.

I had about 5 meds I need to take that prior to ACA cost me about $200 per quarter for 90 day by mail supplies, last year the same drugs were $800 per quarter because of new ACA testing requirements. I was able to get off of two of them last year. One of the drugs needed to be recertified as safe ( it had been prescribed for over a 100 years with trillions of doses and no issues, yet ACA required that it be recertified as safe, manufacturers dropped out, supply decreased, price increased.

ACA is great for people that can't get insurance or can't afford insurances, everybody else in the middle got stuck with poorer overage, higher deductibles.

Our broker presents about 75 plans to chose from. They are all close in cost when you look a the coverage.

Why is it a business responsibility to solve healthcare costs for everyone and absorb the differences?

Who got helped the most by ACA
1) insurance companies
2) healthcare companies
3) drug companies
4) people without insurance
5) people that couldn't get insurance.

everyone else lost something.

There has lately been a rash of threads at our Business Forum
that veer off course into opinionated political discussions.
These discussions invariably turn into arguments,
and ultimately steer the discussion in a direction that
is not in keeping with the goal of our Forums: to promote
discussion of professional woodworking topics.

The unfortunate result of these events is that the original
topic is no longer pursued.

We've removed a number of responses in the hope that
this discussion can get back on track, with the responses
related to business aspects of professional woodworking.

Deciding when a response is "over the line" is a subjective
task, and while our participants may not agree with our decisions
to remove certain responses, we hope they will consider the
challenges we face monitoring 18 Forums, and respect our
position in these matters.

There are thousands of forums on the web where political
discussions are appropriate. Participants interested in the
discussing general politics should investigate those resources.

This note is posted as a clarification ... not as an effort to
inspire a forum discussion about our policies. We welcome all
suggestions regarding our policies, and the appropriate method
to pass along suggestions is via email.

Carl Hagstrom
Systems Administrator at WOODWEB

Perhaps many of you do not remember what your health policies cost prior to 2008. I retired in 2006 at age 55, and my policy for myself, wife and age 18 daughter cost $425 a month with a $1000 deductible. By 2016, with just myself and wife with a $5000 deductible the monthly cost was $2250. Same insurance company. Huge annual increases in 2010/11/12 in anticipation of Obamacare.

Anytime the government mandates that individuals or companies must purchase any product, and does not control the price of that product, the cost goes through the roof. Just look and what the disposal fees for hazardous material has gone to once the legal mandates came into effect.

Sea444,

You are right that things are more expensive. My house today appraises for over $800K. In 2008 I could have bought it for under $400K.

Just like you I am older now too. Last time I checked older people tend to consume more medical services.

I understand that you don't like mandated insurance. You think people should be free to choose whether or not they need insurance. What happens if one of these rugged individualists falls off his skateboard and isn't wearing a helmet. Do we just consign them to the compost pile?

Nothing is free. Living in a society that has great benefits costs money. Be grateful you have what you have.

No one needs health insurance. We all need health care.

Drop out the insurance and concentrate on providing health care like most of the world does.