John Goodman's case against the health care reform law:
Most people intuitively know that the worst thing government can do in the middle of the deepest recession in 70 years is enact policies that increase the expected cost of labor. Yet that is exactly what happened last spring, with the passage of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) ...
In four years’ time, the minimum cost of labor will be a $7.25 cash minimum wage and a $5.89 health minimum wage (family), for a total of $13.14 an hour or about $27,331 a year. (I think you can see already that no one is going to want to hire low-wage workers with families.)
Brad DeLong and his commenters argue that the "health minimum wage" is effectively paid for by premiums and by government subsidies for low-wage workers. DeLong's mantra:
There is no employer mandate in the bill. Employers will still be able to offer workers $7.25/hour to work.