Health Care Effects

[jefftheshark]

Since it looks like the health care bill is going to pass, I'm wondering how this might effect the markets next week.

On one hand, this should add a huge additional cost to doing business on companies that are already struggling, which would be negative. And yet the worst off will be small businesses, and their loss will reduce competition for the big guys and this would be positive.

This should be viewed as horrible for the dollar, which generally is good for the market. But this will be bad for employment as the first reaction for many businesses will be to layoff more employees rather than pay for their additional labor burden expenses.

I wonder if anyone else here is thinking along these lines and what you all think might be the reaction.

Thanks.

JTS

 

[82CardsGrad]

Since it looks like the health care bill is going to pass, I'm wondering how this might effect the markets next week.

On one hand, this should add a huge additional cost to doing business on companies that are already struggling, which would be negative. And yet the worst off will be small businesses, and their loss will reduce competition for the big guys and this would be positive.

This should be viewed as horrible for the dollar, which generally is good for the market. But this will be bad for employment as the first reaction for many businesses will be to layoff more employees rather than pay for their additional labor burden expenses.

I wonder if anyone else here is thinking along these lines and what you all think might be the reaction.

Thanks.

JTS

There are so many other dynamics in play right now that it will be tough to pinpoint the actual impact on the market from this bill.
However, I have little doubt that companies will indeed step up their efforts to do a TON more with a TON less. As employment goes, this is about to get seriously ugly... as if it hasn't already been...

 

[Yuma]

I saw an update yesterday and it looks like small businesses under 50 employees will be exempt. However, the final bill is not reconciled yet.

They are looking to tax individuals and families without insurance. I wish they just would have tacked the tax onto your payroll withholding and split it between employer and employee. It wasn't clear how they were going to levy this tax. Probably when you do your taxes every year.