As a result of President Obama’s re-election, thousands of jobs are expected to be lost due to the massive tax hikes on individuals and businesses contained in Obamacare.  Many businesses have anticipated the looming tax hikes by shedding employees and/or reducing their hours. 

One of the more devastating tax hikes in Obamacare is the medical device tax: a 2.3 percent tax on the manufacturing of pacemakers, operating tables, and other devices. Two large medical device manufacturers, Stryker and Zimmer Holdings, have already announced layoffs of 1,000 and 450, respectively, in response to the tax.  More layoffs and job cuts are expected to occur in the industry with the tax projected to cost a total of 43,000 jobs. 

The restaurant industry is also feeling the negative effect of Obamacare, particularly the law’s health care mandate that will force them to provide health care coverage to their employees. 

According to the Wall Street Journal, multiple restaurants, hotels, and retailers have begun cutting employee hours to below 30 hours a week – 30 being the minimum businesses will be held liable for providing health care coverage to their employees.

CEO of CKE restaurants, Andy Puzder, said in response to the cost of Obamacare on his business:

“With Obamacare, the best estimate we could get on what happens if we keep all of the people who are currently full-time employees of our company-owned restaurants and we offer medical insurance to everybody as required by the statute is that we would go from paying $12 million a year to $30 million a year for healthcare insurance.”

The 150% cost increase has forced CKE Restaurants, the parent company of Carl’s Jr. and Hardee’s, to begin hiring part-time workers to replace full-time employees who left.

The fatal effect of Obamacare will not only cost the health care industry thousands of jobs, it will leave the industry in worse shape than it was to begin with.