Sunday February 9 2014 CBO Report
Been a while since writing here. After the trip to Europe, it occurred to me that what I had been doing with the Midden Harbour blog was a lot of blather. A cornerstone of my writing over the years has been an internal editor who pops up and asks "Why are you writing this for public consumption?". Not "Why are you writing this?", because I enjoy the writing process and frequently the process helps me clarify ideas and thoughts. So the writing is valuable to me regardless.
Anyway... I decided to stop the day-to-day record of Life in MIdden Harbour, and for all intents and purposes the blog was dead. But while out for a walk along the beach yesterday, I had the thought that there was some value to continuing to write some editorial comment on the dangerous weirdness that our world is immersed in. That process will help me make sense of what's going on, and clarify how I feel about it's impact on me and mine. Topic selection will be random, and perspective will be eclectic, and most of what I write will only make sense--hopefully--to me.
So here goes...
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released a report this week that was, in part, an assessment of the impact of The Affordable Care Act (ACA) on employment. The report said that the ACA will reduce employment by 2.5 million jobs over the next decade. The debate over what this means has been predictably partisan and ideological. A hallmark of any public debate in the Excited States of America these days. This is happening despite the fact that the CBO report
The attacks on the ACA, based on the report, claim that the ACA is: A) increasing unemployment by making health care too expensive for employers, B) increasing unemployment by destroying jobs (A and B are essentially the same argument, or C) creating a nation of freeloaders who will stop working because they now have free healthcare. Each of these arguments ignores the conclusion of the report which states quite clearly that the main cause of this shift in employment will be caused by workers leaving jobs that they previously held just to maintain their health care benefits. Under the ACA this is no longer needed.
Let's assume the CBO knows what it's talking about-- And apparently even the critics think they do, because they're keen to believe the job-impact numbers. Maybe they didn't read far enough to get to the part of causes. In any case, it's difficult to understand how anyone would leave a job simply so that they can sit around and starve because they now have health care to fix their malnutrition. If people are leaving jobs because they don't need to work those hours anymore, that can only be a good thing for these reasons:
Been a while since writing here. After the trip to Europe, it occurred to me that what I had been doing with the Midden Harbour blog was a lot of blather. A cornerstone of my writing over the years has been an internal editor who pops up and asks "Why are you writing this for public consumption?". Not "Why are you writing this?", because I enjoy the writing process and frequently the process helps me clarify ideas and thoughts. So the writing is valuable to me regardless.
Anyway... I decided to stop the day-to-day record of Life in MIdden Harbour, and for all intents and purposes the blog was dead. But while out for a walk along the beach yesterday, I had the thought that there was some value to continuing to write some editorial comment on the dangerous weirdness that our world is immersed in. That process will help me make sense of what's going on, and clarify how I feel about it's impact on me and mine. Topic selection will be random, and perspective will be eclectic, and most of what I write will only make sense--hopefully--to me.
So here goes...
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released a report this week that was, in part, an assessment of the impact of The Affordable Care Act (ACA) on employment. The report said that the ACA will reduce employment by 2.5 million jobs over the next decade. The debate over what this means has been predictably partisan and ideological. A hallmark of any public debate in the Excited States of America these days. This is happening despite the fact that the CBO report
The attacks on the ACA, based on the report, claim that the ACA is: A) increasing unemployment by making health care too expensive for employers, B) increasing unemployment by destroying jobs (A and B are essentially the same argument, or C) creating a nation of freeloaders who will stop working because they now have free healthcare. Each of these arguments ignores the conclusion of the report which states quite clearly that the main cause of this shift in employment will be caused by workers leaving jobs that they previously held just to maintain their health care benefits. Under the ACA this is no longer needed.
Let's assume the CBO knows what it's talking about-- And apparently even the critics think they do, because they're keen to believe the job-impact numbers. Maybe they didn't read far enough to get to the part of causes. In any case, it's difficult to understand how anyone would leave a job simply so that they can sit around and starve because they now have health care to fix their malnutrition. If people are leaving jobs because they don't need to work those hours anymore, that can only be a good thing for these reasons:
- They will have more time to spend with their families or doing something else they enjoy
- The jobs they're leaving won't disappear, so some of the currently unemployed will be able tofind work
