16 thoughts on “More Obamacare Layoffs”

1. The learning curve will be rather quick on this issue…. albeit too late.

2. We’ve been forecasting this would be the response to this administration, and their massively wise Obamacare for months.
   We were castigated for that by every liberal we’ve ran across.

   The hyperventilation is coming. Wait for it …

   • Another seemingly disconnected observation of corollary:

     We’ve been forecasting this would be the response to this administration, and their massively wise Obamacare for months.
     We were castigated for that by every liberal we’ve ran across.

     This doesn’t happen just with Obamacare predictions: it is true for economic, social decay and foreign affairs — just to name a few. Yet, no matter how many times the same general group of people making these predictions are proven to be basically correct, the same group of people opposing them never learn the lessons. What’s more interesting is that — in general terms — the people who never seem to learn these lessons are those who are constantly stressing the benefit of “education.”

     At some point, one would think that a person looking at this repetitive cycle would have to start wondering what these people mean by “education,” as it apparently does not seem to teach a person how to avoid repeating the same mistakes over and over again.

     • Joe, there is no doubt the liberals have been spending the past 30 years (not a particularly grand time for liberalism) laying the foundations for their mult-front agendas. As you pointed out earlier, with each crushing defeat, they rooted themselves deeply in to our education system, and have thus laid plans, slowly over time, that have effected nearly every facet of our very existence.

       But, one point at a time. The problem is so entirely massive that no short answer could begin to address them all (as evidenced by your long posts on a singular specific topic).

       See my point?

       • Augger,

         I understand the extent of the problem, but — and I understand why people are reluctant to consider it — but there is a solution:
         

         • Yes, but divide FL.; the top portion red, south FL blue.

           • Yup. I’ve always said the Cross Florida Barge Canal (from the early 70s I think) should have been widened and completed making “south” Florida a seperate state.

             • When my son had the field trip to Tallahassee, the Barge Canal was an issue that they did a mock vote on as FL legislators. Your idea is perfect.

3. Harummph. Let’s see. Stryker has been one the big corporations lobbying against the tax. Care to look at where these layoffs are occurring? well- layoffs at local facilities that they purchased for their assets and intended to close down regardless of Obamacare or this tax. This is more politics, plain and simple.

   And you can expect to see more of this now that Obamacare is here to stay- because they (the medical device industry) know damn well that with 33+ million more americans having access to health insurance that there sales, and profits will continue to rise. And if they can get rid of the tax- so they reap the profits without having to help cover a portion of the associated costs- that there profits will be that much greater.

   • Yakima Regional Medical Center – lay offs announced today. (But I am sure in your mind, that hospital was purchased for someone’s personal assets, and was intended to close down regardless of Obamacare or this tax. You are right, it’s nothing more than political conspiracy).

     Health Care Select Sector SPDR (NYSE: XLV) – down 1.6%
     Market Vectors Pharmaceuticals ETF (NYSE: PPH) – down 1.0%

     We could go on, but let’s really take a look at the meat of your stupid and doltish assertion….

     “Obamacare contains a job-killing, GDP-sapping tax on medical device makers.” – Benzinga

     And then there is this gem:

     “Every $1 billion in advanced medical technology industry revenues in the U.S.
     generates an additional $1.69 billion in national economic output, almost 13,000 jobs,
     and $778 million in personal income.

     Likewise, however, any policies or changes that negatively impact the operating
     environment or otherwise reduce industry output will have the inverse effect—driving
     significant employment reductions, income reductions, and reducing business.”

     “At the request of AdvaMed, Battelle developed an economic scenario to model the impacts of a potential
     change in the industry stemming from an economic “event” that changes the business environment for the
     medical technology industry. Battelle’s analysis quantifies what the total impact on the U.S. economy
     would be due to a one-time event of this kind. The scale of this impact is subject to increases and
     decreases (as are all sectors) stemming from changes in the final demand and revenue derived from overall
     advanced medical technology industry sales (output). If this economic event were to become permanent,
     the industry baseline economic parameters would be reset by the amount of this one-year impact going forward.
     These potential revenue changes can come from a number of sources; examples include increasing or
     decreasing foreign competition, new breakthrough devices or instrumentation, changes in federal and
     state healthcare reimbursement policies, or changes in competitive pricing or demand occurring via
     business climate changes (such as taxes).

     Battelle modeled a scenario or “economic event” whereby a change in the operating environment in the
     U.S. might result in the advanced medical technology industry declining by $3 billion.”

     http://advamed.org/NR/rdonlyres/6C514FB6-8497-475C-84DC-7872A9DDBADC/0/BattelleFinalAdvaMedEconomicImpactReportMarch2012.pdf

     Do you seriously have any further misinformation to spread around the RNL. drugsandotherthings?

     • Wow really. !0 layoffs at Yakima Medical center as part of reorganization. Do you have any idea how many tens of thousands of layoffs have occurred in the field in the past decade? As individuals, and yes financial groups have bought hospitals and “streamlined” them- not in the interest of their employees. Not in the interest of their clients. Not in the interest of their employees. But in the interest of their investors.

       And care to address the fact that Obamacare presents the medical industry with a substantially increased base of clients- and hence revenue streams? One that far outweighs the minor tax increases they are being asked to pay for this increased pool?

     • I think you shall be happy to know that I e-mailed your article as well as this one to my sister who works at the hospital.There’s a funny story on that. Do you know that I thought she worked at the Life Management? She was a bit upset about my confusion….. (Apparently, she worked there after school, so I was a wee bit behind the times…..)

   • sorry but this is untrue, Thisis a corporate response across the nation, Employers are laying off workers or cutting their hours to pay for or get around Obamacare, Look a tPapajohns, Olive GArden Kroger.All warned before the election they could not afford it and now…….with the elwction they are taking steps to protect thier business by laying off workers.This i s what America voted for on tuesday( Perhaps they were not informed they could lose their jobs)

     • Thanks, John. The conventional wisdom on the left is that Obamacare saves money even though study after study shows that is not true – being communists, and one of the tenets of communism is “a job for everybody, no matter what”, these poor folks just can’t get their heads around the fact that companies can’t subsidize government programs by paying employees that they can’t afford.

       I’ve said it a thousand times, companies are like organisms and the respond to both positive and negative stimuli – Obamacare is a big negative and companies are responding accordingly.

4. Here is what some wonks are saying about Obamacare, post-election:

   http://www.independent.org/newsroom/news_detail.asp?newsID=184

   Six Reasons Why ObamaCare Will Fail
   Dr. John C. Goodman, author of Priceless: Curing the Healthcare Crisis, examines the future of healthcare

   Oakland, Calif., Nov. 9, 2012—The re-election of Barack Obama on November 6th has guaranteed that his signature piece of legislation—ObamaCare—is now likely to go forward.

   However, there is a silver lining that no one is talking about. The Independent Institute book, Priceless: Curing the Healthcare Crisis, by Dr. John C. Goodman, provides the perfect ObamaCare survival kit, identifying 6 major flaws in the legislation that are so serious that Congress—both Democrats and Republicans—will be forced to face them, whether they want to or not.

   ObamaCare is not paid for. At least not in any politically realistic way.

   ObamaCare promises what it cannot deliver. In order for the country as a whole to get more medical care, there must be more doctors and nurses and hospital personnel – something that ObamaCare does not create.

   ObamaCare mandates and subsidies will destabilize entire sectors of the economy. We could see entire firms dissolve and re-combine, just in response to health insurance subsidies, rather than based on economic considerations.

   ObamaCare creates perverse incentives that threaten the quality of care. Within the newly created health insurance exchanges, insurers will profit from healthy enrollees and incur losses on the less healthy.

   A weakly enforced mandate will undermine the health insurance marketplace. The fine for being uninsured will be small, relative to the cost of insurance. And there is not much the IRS can do to people who ignore the mandate, other than withhold refund checks.

   A strongly enforced mandate will strain almost every family budget. If we are required to buy coverage and denied the right to scale back benefits, choose higher deductibles, etc., health insurance premiums will crowd out more and more of the average family’s budget.

   So, when the doctors stop seeing senior patients, when the hospitals leave the market (as one in seven will in the next eight years, according to the Medicare Actuary) and when the insurance plans cut back on the benefits they are providing, there will be enormous pressure on Congress to reverse all of this. As discussed in Priceless, true reform requires freeing caregivers and patients by allowing them to interact in innovative ways to help meet unique individual medical needs. Thus, Dr. Goodman, and most inside-the-Beltway folks, is firmly convinced ObamaCare will be reformed and its unsustainable provisions reversed.

   • When the doctors stop seeing senior patients?

     It’s already happening, my friend. This was handed to a ER physician in Panama City by a patient who came to the ER for a checkup after being let go by her MD as he was no longer participating in Medicare. She was unable to find another physician willing to pick up her case (partly because of her complex medical diagnoses, and in part because of her Medicare).

     

     Yes, it’s just that easy for a physician to walk away from Medicare/Medicaid/Obamacare.