CA Bakers Considers Cutting Employees To Escape Obamacare Costs

Tough decisions, courtesy of government rules

What sort of costs will ObamaCare impose on small business owners? A New York Times story on San Diego bakery Baked in the Sun offers a hint.

Under the law, employers with more than 50 employees must either offer qualifying health insurance to all full time employees or pay a fine of $2,000 per worker each year. Currently, Baked in the Sun does not offer health insurance to 90 of its 95 employees, which means that owners Rachel Shein and Steve Pilarski face a difficult choice: They can offer health insurance to their employees and figure out how to finance the additional cost; they can pay a fine for not offering health insurance; or they trim their full time workforce below 50 employees so that they can avoid both the cost of offering insurance and the cost of the penalty.