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The Congressional Budget Office estimated on Tuesday that the Affordable Care Act will reduce the number of full-time workers by 2.5 million over the next decade. That is mostly a good thing, a liberating result of the law. ... The report estimated that — thanks to an increase in insurance coverage under the act and the availability of subsidies to help pay the premiums — many workers who felt obliged to stay in a job that provided health benefits would now be able to leave those jobs or choose to work fewer hours than they otherwise would have. ... Some workers may have had a pre-existing condition and will now be able to leave work because insurers must accept all applicants without regard to health status and charge premiums unrelated to health status. Some may have felt they needed to keep working to pay for health insurance, but now new government subsidies will help pay premiums, making it more possible for them to leave their jobs. [emphasis added]
In other words, Obamacare has created an enormous incentive not to work and to free ride the system. And the New York Times thinks this is a good thing.
What the Times fails to ask, however, is: Who will pay for the healthcare benefits and subsidies of the 2.5 million workers who have dropped out of the workforce? After all, the healthcare provided to these people will not be without cost. Someone else is going to pay. Namely, healthy, hard-working, prosperous young people. So, we are going to tax the most prosperous, hard-working, successful members of society to pay for the healthcare of freeloaders. The calculation for a worker is easy: if I don't work, or work less, my salary will go down to the point where I will receive subsidies for healthcare; in effect, if I don't work, I will get health care for free; so why should I work?
Yes, this is certainly a "liberating result." People will be liberated of their duty to work hard to support themselves since this support will be provided by others.
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