CBO: Obamacare will let people decide how much they want to work

The title of this blog post is accurate. But you won't see it on Fox News or other right-wing sound machines, which have been screaming falsities today like, "Obamacare to cost 2.3 million jobs over 10 years."

Not true. 

The Congressional Budget Office report that has gotten Affordable Care Act haters into such a mad dog frenzy actually has good news for the country: now that most people have access to affordable health insurance that isn't tied to employment, they have more latitude to decide how much to work. 

Full-time. Part-time. Not at all. 

Matthew Yglesias offers up some fictional, yet realistic, examples.

John is 59, has had a good career as a mechanical engineer, has saved pretty diligently his whole life, and also has a chronic heart condition. He's got the cash to retire early, but he's not yet eligible for Medicare. So he needs to keep working more than he wants to for a few more years. Or at least he would have if not for the Affordable Care Act, which makes it feasible for him to buy insurance on the private market and get a jump start on his fishing plans.

Mary is 27 and pregnant. She'd like to start working part time once the baby is born. But even though her husband's company is doing OK it's too small to provide health insurance to its employees. So the family really needs Mary to put in enough hours to qualify for benefits at her office. That is, they would need her to work full time if not for the Affordable Care Act, whose small-business tax credits are going to let her husband's boss start offering insurance.

Those are good stories, right?

Sure seems so.

Yglesias goes on to point out that the Affordable Care Act kills jobs in the same way that Social Security or Medicare kills jobs. Beneficiaries have more freedom to decide whether to keep working after becoming eligible for these programs. 

It's not really news when Republicans distort facts. Or conjure up their own twisted view of the world.

But I'm glad the Washington Post fact-checker called them out on this issue, giving them three "Pinocchios" -- a signficant factual error. Check out "No, CBO did not say Obamacare will kill 2 million jobs."

Look at this way: If someone says they decided to leave their job for personal reasons, most people would not say they “lost” their jobs. They simply decided not to work.

The CBO, in its sober fashion, virtually screams that this is not about jobs.  (Note the sections in bold face.)

“The estimated reduction stems almost entirely from a net decline in the amount of labor that workers choose to supply, rather than from a net drop in businesses’ demand for labor, so it will appear almost entirely as a reduction in labor force participation and in hours worked relative to what would have occurred otherwise rather than as an increase in unemployment (that is, more workers seeking but not finding jobs) or underemployment (such as part-time workers who would prefer to work more hours per week).”

[to be clear: boldfaced text is what is not happening with Obamacare]

Finally, we should note that the figures (2 million, etc.) are shorthand for full-time equivalent workers — a combination of two conclusions: fewer people looking for work and some people choosing to work fewer hours. The CBO added those two things and produced a hard number, but it actually does not mean 2 million fewer workers. (This is also off a base of more than 160 million people.)

In fact, no one really knows what percentage will leave the work force entirely and what percentage will shift to part-time work, making it difficult to predict how this will shake out in the end.

...Once again, we award Three Pinocchios to anyone who deliberately gets this wrong.

Comments

[Dan]

Brian,
When are you going to accept that the ACA has nothing to do with Affordable, or Healthcare?
So far it's big success has been to increase the number of people on Medicaid, decrease the number of people that are actually insured, increase the amounts that people have to pay to be insured buying a plan that is worse than the one that got cancelled. I know you like to bring out how many people for the first time are able to get insurance, but it is a far smaller number than everyone else that has been affected negatively. Like me.... I now have to pay $260 a month for myself (I'm 47) for the honor of getting to pay $6000 out of pocket if something more serious should happen. So I pay $3132 a year for... the ability to pay my medical costs which would be over $9000 before the insurance pays.... and guess what... it's mandated.

Oh but it has RX benefit... yeah. I can pay a $5 copay.... or $3 if I use... (wait for it)... Money. $2 isn't much to bitch about, but in the scope of things, that's a 66% differential. 66% is a much bigger deal on higher priced procedures yes?

ACA... Which should be renamed the American Communism Agreement, is nothing more than a way to control behavior of a society. It has nothing to do with healthcare, or insurance or making the country a better place. It is designed to take away the motivation of people. No reason to strive to be better and help others... no instead be average and that's okay. No reason to work, when you can stay home and collect more money and benefits from the USSA. No reason to work harder when you are going to be taxed heavier, shamed for being an over achiever and shunned into being average... just like the rest.

Now all this talk about raising the minimum wage and how your president is going to do it with another unconstitutional executive order. The effort is to make every job a "living wage" We want the teenager working at McDonalds at his first job to be making as much money as... a doctor, or physicist because its not fair that those guys took chances like borrowing money to get through years of college, studying and interning hoping to not wash out. It's just not fair they make so much less. Maybe nobody ever considered that a lot of jobs that are available at entry level are not really "living wage" jobs. But now that there are fewer jobs available... and these jobs are now the target to get rid of. Take a simple easy entry level job and make it unfeasible for the business owner to provide, and suddenly that job will go away. That's what will happen. No business is going to run at a loss, only the government can do that.

I agree that the CBO report doesn't say 2.2 million jobs will be lost. What it says is that 2.2 million people will be less inclined to work because they will be penalized or paid better by Uncle Sugar than be productive. Is that what we want? A nation of people that don't do anything but make CO2 and poop. Is that the goal, a nation that wants to be ruled by it's politicians instead of free to choose and succeed without being defamed for it? It is easier to control a mass of people with no will or means to rebel.

I know you are going to mock my words and say I'm a hater of this and that. By the way, I'm an Independent. One thing that you might want to consider. If minimum wage goes up to a "living wage" here in Oregon... you can kiss your coffee shops goodbye.

I've noticed the bulk of your blogs for the past several months have been local Salem issues... Has the big picture been a little too much to defend?

[Brian Hines]

Dan, I am indeed going to mock your words, because so much of what you said is unfactual. I realize that truth-telling isn't high on the list of virtues for Affordable Care Act-haters. But you guys really should object to things about Obamacare that are genuinely objectionable, rather than make stuff up.

It has been well documented that when comparable policies are put side by side, the new exchange/Affordable Care Act plans are less expensive. I'm pretty sure that the annual out of pocket limit for those plans is $3,500, or thereabouts, not $6,000.

Some people, and maybe this includes you, have been fooled into signing up for an insurance company replacement plan, rather than shopping around on the Obamacare exchanges. My wife found that the Regence replacement policy was much worse than the plan she found on the Cover Oregon exchange.

Yes. she is paying a higher premium for the exchange plan. But she is saving money overall, because her previous Regence plan had a $7,500 (or maybe higher) deductible. Now her deductible is $1,000. Lots of Americans had cheap insurance plans that was crappy. They didn't realize how crappy until they got sick and needed to pay for expensive medical care.

I assume you have car insurance. I do. My State Farm agent tells me what coverage is required under state law. Why aren't right-wingers up in arms about car insurance? Why isn't this viewed as a Marxist plot? Everybody who owns a car has to have it. Certain benefits are mandated by the government.

Relax: the Affordable Care Act is here to stay. Despite your Fox News talking points, hugely more people have gotten insurance (7 million or so) than have lost it (a few tens of thousands, I believe). In fact, everyone who wants good health insurance can get it now. Oh, unless they live in a GOP controlled state that refuses to offer health insurance to poor people.

[tucson]

Blog host wrote: "Why aren't right-wingers up in arms about car insurance?"

--Probably because the only required auto insurance is liability and property damage. This is to protect the public if you screw up. No one is required to carry collision insurance which is protection from damage you caused to yourself.

Blog host wrote: "Look at this way: If someone says they decided to leave their job for personal reasons, most people would not say they “lost” their jobs. They simply decided not to work."

--Exactly. Many people, as a result of Abummercare, are choosing to work less so that their incomes fall below certain thresholds and they quality for subsidised benefits. Who pays for subsidies? People who work hard and earn more.

So, here is an example of how Abummer's social justice philosophy and policies disincentivises a population to be productive and work hard. It encourages a mindset of 'why work harder to succeed if working less results in getting the same stuff for less or for free?' It actually results in less social justice if justice means getting what you deserve and work for and not what you are entitled to by decree.