The Bay State: once again the health care bell cow

Since this is yet more wonderful news we are finding out after the ObamaCare legislation has been passed, this qualifies for Nancy's Nuances: a journey of discovery.

Remember, folks, if it is happening to the Massachusetts health care sector you can pretty much bet on it happening to the rest of us when all the "benefits" of ObamaCare start kicking in.

The relentlessly rising cost of health insurance is prompting some small Massachusetts companies to drop coverage for their workers and encourage them to sign up for state-subsidized care instead, a trend that, some analysts say, could eventually weigh heavily on the state’s already-stressed budget.

Since April 1, the date many insurance contracts are renewed for small businesses, the owners of about 90 small companies terminated their insurance plans with Braintree-based broker Jeff Rich and indicated in a follow-up survey that they were relying on publicly-funded insurance for their employees.

In Sandwich, business consultant Bill Fields said he has been hired by small businesses to enroll about 400 workers in state-subsidized care since April, because the company owners said they could no longer afford to provide coverage. Fields said that is by far the largest number he has handled in such a short time.

“They are giving up out of frustration,’’ Fields said of the employers. “Most of them are very compassionate but they simply can’t afford health insurance any more.’’

Compassion and a couple of bucks might get you a cup of coffee but as the employers of Massachusetts are quickly finding out, paying the $300 fine instead of covering their employees to the tune of an order of magnitude more than the fine just makes more business sense, compassion be damned.

This, even after Romneycare which was signed into law in 2006 included incentives for employers to provide coverage to low income workers.

Word around the campfire is that Congressional liberals that were not initially onboard with ObamaCare because it did not include the single-payer/public option were convinced otherwise because of this perverse incentive built into ObamaCare whereby businesses saw the option of paying the fine preferable to providing health care for their employees and thus dumping them into a public health plan.

The single-payer model is the defacto endgame here, even though it was never expressly written into the legislation.

H/T: Hot Air