Friday, October 4, 2013

How ObamaCare Wrecks the Work Ethic

By Casey Mulligan

A new wave of redistribution will arrive in America on Jan. 1, primarily thanks to the Affordable Care Act. The president's health-insurance plan forces those who hire, work and produce to pay full price for health care, while creating generous discounts for practically everyone else.

This second redistributionist wave of the Obama era will follow a first wave of tax hikes, additional unemployment benefits, food-stamp expansions, waived work requirements for welfare benefits, etc. These measures were supposed to be temporary, intended to help people cope with the recession. The recession officially ended in mid-2009, but many of the administration's measures continue.

Regardless of whether redistribution is achieved by collecting more taxes from families with high incomes, levying employment taxes on businesses, providing more subsidies to families with low incomes, or all of the above, an essential consequence is the same: a reduction in the reward for working.

Read the rest here.

1 comment:

  1. Great write up until the last paragraph:

    "America absolutely must have taxes and safety-net programs, even though they reduce the reward for working."

    This seems to fly in the face of everything that was just written. Furthermore, where is the evidence for this? America survived over a century with no income tax and "safety net programs" to speak of.

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