Forbes reports that Ohio is the latest state to announce a market-increase in healthcare premiums as a consequence of Obamacare. According to an Ohio Department of Insurance press release, the average Ohioan currently pays $223 per month, but can expect premiums to surge to $420 with the implementation of the Affordable Care Act.
A recent poll by NBC News and the Wall Street Journal showed that 49 percent of Americans believe the Affordable Care Act is a bad idea.
Ohio is not the only state to show signs of distress over the healthcare law. Schools in Indiana are being forced to cut back on part-time employee hours to avoid Obamacare's mandates and penalties.
"What I'm seeing across the state is school districts, unfortunately, having to reduce the hours that they're having some of their folks work, primarily so they don't have to worry about the penalties, or they don't have to provide them health insurance, which would be very, very costly," Dennis Costerison, executive director of the Indiana Association Of School Of Business told the Courier-Journal.
Starting in 2014, businesses with 50 or more workers will be responsible for providing full-time employees with health coverage or pay a $2,000 penalty per employee. Section 4980H was added to the Affordable Care Act to redefine a full-time employee from 40 to 30 hours a week, forcing businesses to restructure the employment status of part-time workers. To comply with the standards, businesses are being forced to reduce hours worked by employees or to prepare for significant increases in healthcare budgets.
Fox News reported in April that Regal Theaters restricted non-salary employee hours across 500 theater locations in 38 states in order to avoid the extra costs imposed by the health care law.
"To comply with the Affordable Care Act, Regal had to increase our health care budget to cover those newly deemed eligible based on the law's definition of a full-time employee. To manage this budget, all other employees will be scheduled in accord with business needs and in a manner that will not negatively impact our health care budget," Regal Entertainment Group wrote in a memo to theater managers.
An InsuranceQuotes.com survey revealed that 64 percent of uninsured adults are on the fence about whether they will purchase Obamacare insurance by the 2014 deadline.
Laura Adams, senior insurance analyst at InsuranceQuotes.com, told CNBC that in order to work the program needs a significant number of healthy individuals to buy insurance.