Monday, June 25, 2012

Europeans and Obamacare (not just for Europeans)

Well, often I hear from people who haven't even tried to read a summary of the law, how wonderful it is. How wonderful that the evil capitalist America suddenly under Obama cares for the poor and offers relatively free healthcare (or wants to; the supreme court will decided that in a few days).

However, as it so often is with risk-averse Europeans, they have no idea about the not-seen effects of a law. They don't know the kind of problems it spawns on its executive level. What do entrepreneurs (especially small businesses) do to comply with it? Will it destroy some of them, because they just can't afford those provisions? There is not much of a lobby in the mainstream media, so you can't blame Europeans on that part. But it is also something about which most Europeans are woefully under educated (to our own detriment). If you want to read about some of the struggles, than try it here and here.

This is something a lot of people don't seem understand about policy and it is not only that way with US policy, but even worse in Europe. Every crafting of policy has shadow effects, side effects that are often not anticipated by the crafter of the laws. And once a law is in effect, big companies start to game it, while small ones suffer under it and in the end this doesn't benefit the people in general, only a small portion that often helped craft the law.

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