25 Feb 2014 Health Care Odds & Ends: Quick Edition

The Wall Street Journal takes stock of the impact ObamaCare will have on various sectors of the economy.  One area set to see growth are those that specialize in helping businesses navigate regulations: “At the same time, employment-benefit and IT companies, such as Virtusa Corp. and Automatic Data Processing Inc. say they are seeing more business as they help clients comply with the [ObamaCare]’s demands.”

Would businesses spend money to hire other businesses to help them comply with ObamaCare if it didn’t exist?  Of course not.  They’d invest it in expanding their businesses, developing new products and technology, and the like.  In short, the things that create new wealth, and, ultimately, new jobs.  Spending money to comply with regulations only shifts money around, from companies that produce wealth to companies that exist to maneuver companies through the regulatory maze.

It may even destroy wealth. Businesses that have the resources to hire regulatory-compliance companies will likely fare better than businesses that can devote fewer resources for such a purpose or have no such resources at all.  Those businesses will have a harder time staying afloat, and should they go under, whatever innovation, jobs, etc. they bring to the market will no longer be there.

2. ObamaCare Will Reduce Your Premiums By $2,500…Uh, Scratch That.

Remember this promise?

As I’ve noted here and here, the Kasier Permanente policy that National Center for Public Policy Research has is being cancelled because of ObamaCare.  The total annual premium increase for us if we choose the policy Kaiser recommends as a replacement will cost an additional $2,577.

We’re not the only small business.  A new report from the Office of the Actuary at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services finds that for businesses with fewer than 50 employees, “that 65 percent of the small firms are expected to experience increases in their premium rates while the remaining 35 percent are anticipated to have rate reductions.”

And what do you wanna bet that most of the businesses seeing rate reductions won’t see ones of $2,500?

More here.