In the darkness of early evening, I was walking down to the corner store and I passed a neighbor of mine washing his car. We fell into friendly conversation and of course it came around to the election. This guy is a conservative, as are most folks around here, and repeated a few Republican truisms, but I let a lot of it slide, not wanting to be heavy handed and curious about how he saw things.
At a certain point, I asked him "What is the one thing you'd like to see changed coming out of Washington" and he started talking about changing the leadership.....But I stopped him, saying "but I'm not talking about the big picture. What specifically would help you the most to see changed?"
He immediately brought up the ACA in a way that let me understand that it was not an ideological complaint but a genuine concern and worry over how the employer mandate would affect his business.
Over the past ten years or so he and his wife have developed a string of nine clothing boutiques in the area, employing ninety workers. As such, they are considered a large business and do not qualify for the ACA tax credit....but as large as their business has gotten, they still live on my street in the same house, cars, etc. They take home enough to be comfortable but I don't think that they are at all what comes to peoples' minds when using the term "Big Business."
The Affordable Health Care Act has them very worried...concerned that they will have to lay off workers in response to the health insurance mandate.
I don't have a lot of specifics about their business, but here is the outline, some of it guesses:
They do not now offer health insurance to their employees. Their profit margin is around 9%. Guessing their gross receipts at 4 million, this gives them a take-home of around $360,000.
At an average employer cost for a group policy of about $5000/employee. Subtracting the business deduction and consequent reductions in income tax and FICA, this will leave them with about $90,000 profit, a 75% reduction.
This community is chock full of expertise and research energy. We all want the ACA to succeed. I submit that it will not, and we will not win over Main Street if we cannot show this family and others like him that he will not be devastated financially by its requirements.
Please keep in mind that due to my delicacy about his financial privacy, a lot of my numbers are in the realm of reasonable guesses. But the question stands.
The floor is open.
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