http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/aol-ceo-obamacare-additional-71-million-expense-us_778758.html I might just give a crap about this and raise a bunch of Obamacare ruckus but the CEO makes $12 million a year and he is bitching about spreading $7.1 million in extra cost across all employees. He is talking about passing the extra cost to the employee or cutting other benefits. I know that CEO pay is way over inflated at all major companies, including mine, but when a guy like this wants to shit on his employees in the press... well, it would be time for me to polish off the resume and hit Linkedin hard if I worked for AOL.
So when you throw the cost on the employer, what do they do? You can marginalize it all you want, but it falls back on the people. The idea was to CUT cost, not increase it.
Employers can avoid any penalties if they offer a good health care plan that covers at least 60% of covered health care expenses and does not exceed 9.5% of the employees income.
I did. That 7.1 million dollars he is referring to are penalties that they would have to pay because the insurance plan they offer does not meet those minimum requirements of the law. Further, as Red pointed out we are talking about .3 of 1% of AOL's total revenue. Pretending that AOL will have to make major alterations to their system of benefits as a result of incurring that additional third of a percent is ludicrous and indicative of the larger problem of income inequality in the country. Here we have a guy sitting on TV who makes 12 million per year and he is trying to figure out how to pass along 7 million in additional costs (which totals 1/3 of a percent of total revenue) to those who are making less than seventy grand a year. That's called greed and he is whining.
Then how did you gather that as he was not that specific? You can marginalize as you want, but in the end the people will suffer... The law was rushed and does not do what it intended to do. If it is greed or whatever else you and Red claim it to be, then you should recognize this as a failed law that does not address the real problem, GREED.
The point is that big, profitable companies like AOL have always offered health benefits as part of the package to attract and keep good workers. From time to time those costs up up and the companies have to pay the costs, because they are minuscule compared to their revenues and their employees are vital to them. If AOL passes 100% of the increase onto its employees while raking in huge corporate profits . . . well, that is the sort of thing that makes employees shop around for a better job. My prediction . . . AOL will just pay the increase so that their employees do not have to. It's just good business when you are making money. That won't keep CEO's from publicly complaining and lobbying Congress for relief from this tiny increase in costs.
Non-sequitor and a straw man. Health laws are not intended to address corporate greed. They just demand corporate responsibility in health care for its employees.
