Obamacare's Regulations Still Wreaking Havoc | Affecting American Baseball

Except for Obamacare!

As Obamacare’s rollout continues, the tens of thousands of pages of regulations it spawned are making more and more trouble for Americans.

The AP writes today, “If your income for 2014 is going to be higher than you estimated when you applied for health insurance, then complex connections between the health law and taxes can reduce or even eliminate your tax refund next year. Maybe you're collecting more commissions in an improving economy. Or your spouse got a better job. It could trigger an unwelcome surprise. The danger is that as your income grows, you don't qualify for as much of a tax credit. Any difference will come out of your tax refund, unless you have promptly reported the changes. Nearly 7 million households have gotten health insurance tax credits, and major tax preparation companies say most of those consumers appear to be unaware of the risk. ‘More than a third of tax credit recipients will owe some money back, and (that) can lead to some pretty hefty repayment liabilities,’ said George Brandes, vice president for health care programs at Jackson Hewitt Tax Service. . . . Concern about the complex connection between the health care law and rel="nofollow" target="new"><b style="color: black;">find the forms highly complicated, requiring month-by-month computations for some taxpayers. Taxpayers accustomed to filing a simplified 1040EZ will not be able to do so if they received health insurance tax credits this year.” The AP concludes that while “[f]unneling health insurance subsidies through the income-tax system was once seen as a political plus for Obama and congressional Democrats,” in the end, it “made an already complicated tax system more difficult for many consumers.”

Meanwhile, the provision defining 30 hours per week as the threshold at which businesses must provide health insurance for employees is still resulting in reduced hours and fewer hires. Last week, according to the Chicago Sun-Times, it even affected the Chicago Cubs. During a rainstorm, the grounds crew at Wrigley Field was unable to get the tarp on the field quickly enough to keep the surface playable later, resulting in a protest from the San Francisco Giants that was upheld by Major League Baseball for the first time in decades.

The Sun-Times explains the connection to Obamacare: “Add the Affordable Care Act – or, specifically, the big-business Cubs’ response to it – to the causes behind Tuesday night’s tarp fiasco and rare successful protest by the San Francisco Giants. The staffing issues that hamstrung the grounds crew Tuesday during a mad dash with the tarp under a sudden rainstorm were created in part by a wide-ranging reorganization last winter of game-day personnel, job descriptions and work limits designed to keep the seasonal workers – including much of the grounds crew – under 130 hours per month, according to numerous sources with direct knowledge. That’s the full-time worker definition under ‘Obamacare,’ which requires employer-provided healthcare benefits for ‘big businesses’ such as a major league team. . . . [S]ources say this year’s [grounds crew] protocol has changed dramatically since the off-season shakeup with game-day personnel in anticipation of the ACA taking effect – along with the experience level in many areas because of resulting attrition. . . . Maybe it’s a transition issue with the new individual hour limits imposed or a matter of spreading the same hours over more events (a recent high school showcase at Wrigley, more extra inning games, including the longest in franchise history, for instance). But the people on the ground say the difference is clear.”

In other words, the Cubs are apparently facing similar constraints as other businesses, causing them to limit some employees’ hours to avoid hitting the Obamacare threshold. But in this tarp incident, the Sun-Times’ reporting suggests that due to that issue either not enough personnel were available that night or the more experienced employees weren’t around. The Sun-Times says, “Thanks a lot, Obama.”

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Tags: Obamacare, Wrecking Havoc, loosing your tax refund, baseball, The Cubs, ground crews  To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!