Where is the Victim?

Advocates for affordable healthcare said yesterday that a key piece of the state's new health insurance law asks far too little of businesses, requiring them to provide employees only bare-bones coverage to avoid a $295 per-worker fee for companies offering no insurance plan

Personally, I fail to see why government should be allowed to force a business to provide ANY coverage. This is just another form of tax increase.

The rule's supporters said lawmakers who reached the deal in the spring shared a modest goal: ending an unfair system that allowed companies offering no insurance to get a free ride by relying on more generous employers to help foot the bill for uninsured medical expenses. The Democrat-led Legislature that adopted the nation's most ambitious healthcare restructuring didn't embrace the broader goal of requiring employers to meet minimum coverage levels, supporters said.

What is “unfair” about free enterprise? Employers who pay a generous wage, and provide health insurance & retirement benefits are able to attract a higher class of employee and will experience lower turnover. If a business owner CHOOSES to pay less than their competitors, and CHOOSES to bypass employee benefits, then who suffers?

The customers of the lower paying business usually get the lower price goods they want. The employees have a job they are willing to accept at a compensation level that is suitable to their needs & qualifications.

WHO is hurt in this situation?