(02-05-2014 04:19 PM)dmacfour Wrote:  

(02-05-2014 04:13 PM)blunderbuss Wrote:  

(02-05-2014 04:02 PM)dmacfour Wrote:  Healthcare benefits aren't as salient as a larger paycheck, and I don't think a lot of people are smart enough to look past that. For that reason, I don't think many people would pass up a better job for a larger healthcare subsidies.

No offense but you're a very naive young man. We have plenty of people in this country that are more than content feed off the government teat than find a job or a "better" job.

So you're speculating that poor people, who are not known for making sound financial decisions, would give up more money for cigarettes and booze for healthcare benefits? No way in hell.

It's a simple enough thing to figure out: ask someone if they'd rather have X income and Y healthcare coverage, or X+1000 income and Y-1000 healthcare coverage. Not only would they pick to have a higher income, I'm willing to bet that many would choose to lose more healthcare coverage in the interest of a bigger paycheck (think X+1000 and Y-1200). Go on survey monkey and get people to answer that kind of question.

The CBO evaluated just those scenarios you are suggesting and came to the conclusion that Obamacare disincentivizes working full-time to qualify for subsidies. Part of their research is survey and survey data analysis.

Anecdotally, I worked with a woman who would never work more than 31 hours a week or it would kick her income over the SNAP qualifying threshold. She never got very good reviews because of her unwillingness to work any more hours but she absolutely wanted to maintain SNAP.

Even though it doesn't make sense to hold yourself back from improving your employment prospects (i.e. working more hours when your employer asks) there are plenty of people who only look at their bottom line TODAY and want only to maintain their freebies from their government daddy.