Did Obamacare kill the Obama recovery?

By: Conn Carroll | Senior Editorial Writer Follow Him @Conncarroll | 07/21/11 9:44 AM

The Heritage Foundation’s James Sherk has a fascinating new paper out showing that the U.S. economic recovery stalled almost immediately after Obamacare became law. Before Obamacare was passed, private sector job creation had been averaging 67,600 net new jobs a month. After Obamacare passed net private sector job creation fell to 6,400 jobs a month. Sherk identifies some provisions of Obamacare that discourage job creation:

• Businesses with more than 50 workers will see their costs for health coverage rise—they must purchase more expensive government-approved insurance or pay a penalty;
• Businesses with fewer than 50 workers have a strong incentive to maintain this size, to avoid these higher costs; and
• Employers face considerable uncertainty about what constitutes qualifying health coverage and what it will cost. They also do not know what the health care market or their health care costs will look like in four years. This makes planning for the future difficult.

Missing form this list is the $500 billion in new taxes Obamacare also inflicted on the nascent recovery.

Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://washingtonexaminer.com/blogs/beltway-confidential/2011/07/did-obamacare-kill-obama-recovery#ixzz1SkYgTdOZ