Some Huge Bakken Wells Reported; "I Can Understand Mom-And-Pop Businesses Not Being Able To Afford ObamaCare" -- Presdident Obama; Staples To Mandate 25-Hour Work Weeks; ObamaCare Is High-Cost Catastrophic Health Insurance

A large number of Bakken wells came off the confidential list today; they have been updated. There are some huge well (again, as usual). 

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ObamaCare? That Was Easy -- Staples

The Federally-mandated 30-hour work week? Think again: it's 25 hours.  Staples, the No. 1 U.S. office supplies retailer, has told its employees not to work more than 25 hours per week.

I'm not exactly sure where to place this story; I have a link at the bottom of the blog about companies "leaving" ObamaCare, but "leaving" needs to be in "air quotes" because everyone seems to have their own way of dealing with ObamaCare.

The tag: http://themilliondollarway.blogspot.com/search/label/ObamaCareCosLeaving.

Regular readers know that I have been tracking ObamaCare from day 1. 

The story I am referring to today come from Reuters:  Obama slams Staples, big companies on healthcare: 'Shame on them' - :

U.S. President Barack Obama singled out office supply giant Staples Inc as undercutting his healthcare reform law and said large corporations should not use the health insurance issue as an excuse for cutting wages. 

"It's one thing when you've got a mom-and-pop store who can't afford to provide paid sick leave or health insurance or minimum wage to workers … but when I hear large corporations that make billions of dollars in profits trying to blame our interest in providing health insurance as an excuse for cutting back workers’ wages, shame on them,” Obama said in an interview with BuzzFeed.

The Affordable Care Act requires companies with more than 50 employees to pay for health insurance for people who work 30 hours a week or more. Reuters has reported that some businesses are keeping staffing numbers below 50 or cutting the work week to less than 30 hours to avoid providing employee health insurance.

Staples, the No. 1 U.S. office supplies retailer, has told its employees not to work more than 25 hours per week.

So many story lines here. I love the line from President Obama that he could understand mom-and-pop businesses not being able to afford ObamaCare. Does he not realize that the bulk of American businesses in the US are small business?

Whatever.  Wait until Staples defines their employees as "individual contractors." LOL.

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Minimum Wage? That Was Easy -- Aldopho Gomez

By the way, speaking of cutting hours for employees because of ObamaCare, the same thing is happening with regard to the minimum wage, but I guess it's a win-win: the employee gets the same amount of pay but has more free hours to spend at home (maybe less day-care expenses); and the employer gets to bring in family members to take up the slack. The Los Angeles Times is reporting:

[Due to the minimum wage] wage increases ate into profits at businesses in San Francisco, San Jose, Albuquerque and Santa Fe, N.M. And that fundamentally changed the way they did business. Owners couldn't simply absorb the costs, so they scrubbed their budgets to preserve profits.

Many question whether workers benefited.

"The thought process is that you're going to put more money in people's pockets," said Ghattas, who owns the Slate Street Café, a wine bar and restaurant in Albuquerque. "In theory, that makes sense. But people end up getting hours cut, and they don't actually make any more money."

I think this administration has done more to hurt the "working class" than any recent administration in history:

• ObamaCare: mandates the 25-hour work week maximum (story above)
• minimum wage: employees' hours are cut (story above)
• illegal immigration: all employment growth since 2000 went to immigrants

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Health Insurers Move High-Cost Patients Off Their Rolls

Forbes is reporting (and quoting The New York Times):

The health insurance market is changing. And the changes are not good. Even before there was Obamacare, most insurers most of the time had perverse incentives to attract the healthy and avoid the sick. But now that the Affordable Care Act has completely changed the nature of the market, the perverse incentives are worse than ever.
Writing in Sunday’s New York Times Elizabeth Rosenthal gives these examples:

• When Karen Pineman of Manhattan sought treatment for a broken ankle, her insurer told her that the nearest in-network doctor was in Stamford, Connecticut – in another state.
• Alison Chavez, a California breast cancer patient, was almost on the operating table when her surgery had to be cancelled because several of her doctors were leaving the insurer’s network.
• When the son of Alexis Gersten, a dentist in East Quogue New York, needed an ear, nose and throat specialist, the insurer told her the nearest one was in Albany – five hours away.
• When Andrea Greenberg, a New York lawyer, called an insurance company hotline with questions she found herself speaking to someone reading off a script in the Philippines.
• Aviva Starkman Williams, a California computer engineer, tried to determine whether the pediatrician doing her son’s 2-year-old checkup was in-network, the practice’s office manager “said he didn’t know because doctors came in and out of network all the time, likening the situation to players’ switching teams in the National Basketball Association.”

But aren’t these insurers worried that if they mistreat their customers, their enrollees will move to some other plan? Here’s the rarely told secret about health insurance in the Obamacare exchanges: insurers don’t care if heavy users of medical care go to some other plan. Getting rid of high-cost enrollees is actually good for the bottom line.

Insurers are going to do very, very well under ObamaCare. This on Facebook (possibly a dynamic link):

Frances Fisher avoiding seeing the doctor for gastro-intestinal bleeding because of a high deductible.  

ObamaCare is essentially high-cost catastrophic insurance. People just don't get it.

A great opportunity for investors.

See disclaimer.