There's lots of news on the other side, too.
A two-parent family with two kids and a $50,000 income could get a $10,000 plan for $3,365, with subsidies covering 66% of the cost. ThereÂs one catch: You only qualify for such deals if youÂre not able to get coverage through your employer. So if youÂre a part-timer whose company canceled your watered-down insurance coverage, it may have actually done you a favor.
Trader JoeÂs is one employer known for offering generous health care benefits, even for part-timers (until now). But even those workers could end up better off under Obamacare. In an internal email published by the Washington Post, a Trader JoeÂs exec provided some calculations for a part-time employee who earns about $24,000 per year and has been paying about $167 per month as her share of a Trader JoeÂs policy similar to a Âsilver plan under the ACA. If she enrolls in Obamacare, the subsidized cost would fall to about $70 per month for nearly identical coverage. And thatÂs before a $500 annual stipend Trader JoeÂs plan to offer part-timers to help them pay for insurance.
http://www.cbsnews.c...t-to-keep-hiring/
(MoneyWatch) Although chief financial officers routinely express concern about the impact of the Affordable Care Act on their companies, they also expect hiring conditions to improve over the next 12 months, a new survey shows.
Despite concerns over the expected impact of Obamacare when it take effect next year, the executives said they expect to increase the number of full-time employees hired by their companies by 1.8 percent, according to a new Duke University/CFO Magazine poll of CFOs at 530 U.S. companies.
[...]
More than 9 out of 10 businesses subject to the law already offer health coverage, while companies with fewer than 50 employees are exempt (About 60 percent of these smaller firms offer health insurance, and under the ACA they also may qualify for a tax credit for offering coverage.) Of the 28 million small businesses in the U.S., 96 percent won't be subject to the rules, according to the U.S. Small Business Administration.
[...]
"Even with numerous risks and uncertainties affecting the global economy, U.S. firms have been able to protect the bottom line, operating at near-record profit levels," said Graham. "By year-end 2014, U.S. firms expect return on assets to jump above 10 percent for the first time since 2007."
FWIW.
Cheers,
Scott.