> "became unbearable for many small businesses due the the ever rising costs of employees’ healthcare."

yet one more reason why "health insurance" should not be something remotely tied to your employer nor employment status. :/

framing healthcare cost in terms of insurance is probably the wrong thing to do for a society, and because healthcare is framed as "insurance", it makes it easier to suggest that the employer pays (since they already pay other kinds of insurance).

healthcare cost ought to be called what it is : levies on society, so that those who get sick can get care without paying. healthcare tax, or medical levy.

"since they already pay other kinds of insurance"

what other types of insurance? social security / medicare? some employers might provide life insurance as well, but... that's it. oh... "unemployment insurance" I guess, in some states (all of this is assuming US for discussion, btw).

Usually, workplace insurance (something like life/continuance insurance).

Some employers provides vehicles, which also has insurance associated with it.

True. I was blissfully unaware of such requirements for employers until I spoke with a few small biz owners who downsized because they couldn’t sustain the full work force.

With the current healthcare costs structure, I wouldn’t mind if the quality of healthcare received was amazing (at very little cost). But employees end up paying a lot even with a good insurance, every year.

So in a sense, the health insurance industry is incentivizing big businesses by shuttering small ones (and those employees will go work for a big biz).

If small businesses (I guess less than 200 employees were exempt from providing healthcare, Amazon would have a much tougher time to cope with such competition.

Right now it is a cake walk. Amazon’s robots in the warehouses don’t need health insurance.

No companies have to provide health insurance, IIRC. It would be great if most/all companies stopped doing it, and moved the decisions back to the actual consumers. Or hey - just provide a basic health insurance safety net for the whole society.

America’s health insurance industry is too deep inside GOP for this to be a thing at least in this decade.

With the latest tax cuts it’s very evident that this country favors Large corporations over small businesses.

May be it is a good thing, but I bet in the next 20 years, America won’t have the highest GDP if some of the things don’t reverse.

Also expect a crash by 2020.

> I believe the situation was bad but manageable before Obamacare and it became unbearable for many small businesses due the the ever rising costs of employees’ healthcare.

Business under 50 employees are exempt from the ACA rule requiring them to provide healthcare. I doubt many small retail stores have that many employees.