80 million hours needed to tackle Obamacare tax rules

[Dave]

Ah yes, Obamacare is such a great thing isn't it?

A week after small businesses warned that Obamacare taxes will eat up to half of their profits, a new government report reveals that simply complying with the new tax rules in the health care act will cost American families and businesses nearly 80 million hours--essentially a whole new tax.

Based on Internal Revenue Service figures, the House Committee on Ways and Means has compiled an estimate of the total amount of hours it will take to comply with the tax rules. The bottom line: 79,229,503 hours, most of which will fall on small businesses.

For fun, the committee gave a comparative example.

"So, what can be done in 79,229,503 hours? The Empire State building, which took 7 million man-hours to build, could be constructed 11 times. The Curiosity Lander could travel from Earth to Mars 13,048 times. Halley's comet, seen from Earth once every 76 years, could be spotted 119 times."

The committee said that Obamacare has resulted in thousands of pages in IRS and Treasury rules including 17 regulations, 5 revenue procedures, 2 revenue rulings, and 14 Treasury decisions.

"Given the enormous impact the regulations will have on job creators, it is no wonder that a recent survey found that over 70 percent of small businesses cite the health care law as a major obstacle to job creation," said the panel headed by Rep. David Camp.

http://washingtonexaminer.com/80-million-hours-needed-to-tackle-oba...

[Willy]

But isn't Obamacare just like being required to obtain car insurance?

[masonco]

Obamacare...:( So unfair to our seniors. Just learned from personal experience that the first 20 days of inpatient rehab that used to be fully covered is now co-pay. We are lucky in that he has to "only" pay $2975 for the approved 20 days of nursing home rehab. Not only do seniors pay  more in monthly premiums, co pays for doctor visits, hospital care, and all out patient rehab, they have now stripped these people of the dignity of the traditional 100 days rehab.

Thanks, Obama, Pelosi and Stupak for making sure our seniors have to choose between homelessness, food, medications or healthcare.

[Dave]

So far I don't think Obamacare has effected my parents money wise, but it did require my dad to go to his doctor so that it could be 'proved' that my father required the medication he's been using for years. His doctor is no fan of Obamacare and I suspect there are quite a few doctors that are not.

[CLFD]

80 million hours needed to tackle Obamacare tax rules

 

The sensationalism of translating how many hours it would take to build 11 Empire State Buildings or witness Haley's comet 119 times might be excellent trivia questions, but I personally would prefer data that exposes the actual reality of what 80 million hours really means to the average small business.

Considering there are more than 27 million small businesses in the US, that 80 million hours averages to slightly under 3 hours per small business.

[Willy]

It's not the 80 million hours that bothers me. It could be 8 hours for all I care. In the large picture, 80 million hours is just the tip of the iceburg when it comes to forcing our Country into a fiscal catasrophe and financial collapse. And who will volunteer to go to medical school, spend years on an education and hundreds of thousands of dollars on tuition and fees then hundreds of thousand of dollars for business loans to go into practice only to be told how much they can charge for their services, what to diagnose, how to treat or not treat a patient and fill out endless forms then wait 6 months to be paid from the Government coffers.  And the fact that we are being forced by the Government to purchase health insurance and if we don't we must pay a huge fine is so Unamerican. What a blatant misuse of power. Who can trust the Federal Government to run a national health care system when every program they run is close to bankruptcy?