Rico Goode Macroeconics/ Article Critique 1

ObamaCare Countdown: How reform affect the economy? The article that I am responding to is called Obamacare countdown: How will reform affect the economy? by Mark Trumbull, Christian Science Monitor. The Article covers how the new Affordable Care Act (ACA) also known as ObamaCare will potential affects the countrys economy. Some argue that by imposing this new expense onto business owners in the private sector, will cause them to start downsizing staff and hours to accommodate the change. I am in agreement with it affecting the Economy negatively. It has already started. Consider this list: Darden Restaurants, the company that runs Red Lobster, Olive Garden and other chains; pizza purveyor Papa Johns; McDonalds; burger chain White Castle; Dennys; Apple-Metro, the New York Applebees franchisee; sandwich chain Jimmy Johns; medical-device makers Metronic, Boston Scientific, Welch Allyn, Stryker, Smith & Nephew, Hill Rom and St. Jude Medical; drug giant Abbot Labs; and auto-parts maker Dana Holding. These are some of the American companies that have announced plans to layoff workers in response to Obamas re-election and the fact that ObamaCare will now not be overturned. The presidents seminal legislation is a pox on America. Sure, the country gets universal health coverage (in theory), but at what cost? The price tag is steep American businesses that keep the nation employed. Our personal taxes are going up a new surtax on dividends, interest and home sales; a surtax on income for the wildly misnamed high earners; caps on itemized deductions and Flexible Spending Accounts; and a tax on any medical device costing more than $100, among others. And, like I said at the start of this piece, choices have consequences. In this case, the consequences hurt the very people the Democrats purport to care about: middle class workers who, in the midst of the most-anemic recovery in modern U.S. history, now find more and more employers are either cutting their jobs or refusing to hire, or theyre facing higher prices in their day-to-day lives all because of a raft of horrendous social-welfare policies. Welch Allyn and Papa Johns are examples of the trend. Welch Allyn, the New York-based maker of medical diagnostic equipment, is laying off 275 workers 10% of the workforce because of the medical-device tax inside ObamaCare that will raise the companys cost of doing business. Papa Johns, meanwhile, is reducing employee hours to less than 30, the government-established full-time threshold at which the company would be forced to provide pricey and government-approved healthcare benefits. In addition, Papa Johns is raising the price of its pizzas. An owner of restaurants in Florida will soon impose an ObamaCare surcharge itemized as such on the receipt for all meals and immediately cut hours to less than 30 employees. Otherwise, he says, the individual restaurants would not be able to cover the costs of providing the mandatory health insurance.