Is ObamaCare Bad for Business?
Is ObamaCare Bad for Business? On March 23rd, 2010, President Barack Obama signed into legislation the “Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.” Since then, the new bill, nicknamed “ObamaCare,” has sparked heated controversy all across the country between Democrats and Republicans, each side fiercely tearing at each other with facts and statistics. I was curious as to what all the hoopla was about, so I decided to look into ObamaCare, and find out what I could about the 2,000-page mandate. I decided to discuss ObamaCare with my step mom, who owns a health clinic in Oregon. Getting a small business owner 's point of view on ObamaCare seemed a smart way to get a more objective understanding of how the public was reacting, aside from any political squabble that tends to drown out the issue at hand. While talking with her, she explained how she was forced to shut down her clinic because of ObamaCare. That moment narrowed the focus of my research into one crucial question: Is ObamaCare good or bad for small businesses in America? This is a question that is very complex, as the answer can be a yes, no, or in-between. Democrats support the mandate, while Republicans reject it. Hence the controversy surrounding the bill. To further my understanding, I went online and tried filtering through the immense plethora of information on ObamaCare. My next step would be to get a general understanding of what the bill is, and how it works. From what I could gather, ObamaCare is basically a mandate that requires all Americans to have health insurance by 2015, or else suffer a hefty penalty that will increase with each year. The main focus of the mandate is towards individuals and small businesses whom cannot afford health insurance. According to Karen Pollitz at abcnews.com, ObamaCare is “a law enacted to ensure that all Americans have access to affordable health insurance. It does this by offering consumers discounts (known as tax credits) on government-sponsored health
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