Opposing view: Businesses face wrenching choice

• Replacing one full-time position with two part-time positions is not job creation.

The president's health care law presents the nation's employers with a number of extremely difficult decisions. Perhaps nothing illustrates the selection of no-good-choices better than the requirement that businesses offer expensive insurance or pay a penalty.

Recent news media coverage has highlighted larger businesses reducing employee hours below 30 hours per week in order to avoid the employer-mandate requirements or penalties. Smaller businesses, too, might be forced to reduce employment below the 50 full-time equivalent employee threshold, or resist growing above the threshold, to avoid the mandate. None of these options is productive, and they ultimately harm employees and the economy. Replacing one full-time position with two part-time positions is not job creation. Further, money that must go toward increased benefits or non-tax deductible penalties will crowd out wage increases and business investment.

The realities that smaller employers, in particular, face under this mandate are both economical and emotional, with the consequences of their choices impacting both their employees' well-being and their ability to stay in business. The smaller the business, the more complicated the decision because the employer is closer to the employees and genuinely wants to both continue their employment and provide benefits. The competing desire to stay profitable (and therefore continue to provide more jobs) makes the pending decision gut-wrenching.

And while small employers are generally aware that they must determine their size and the full-time status of employees in 2013, much uncertainty still exists as to how to do that, what exactly is required. Sadly, this uncertainty surrounding the employer mandate is just the tip of the ambiguity iceberg that is the health care law. Unlike big businesses, most small employers are navigating the law's unclear seas without the luxury of human-resources and legal departments to help translate the endless details.

This uncertainty is damaging. The longer that questions remain unanswered, the more likely uncertain small-business owners will react instinctively to protect the viability of their business by dropping coverage or reducing employment. All the small-business community can say with certainty is that the new law is going to change the health insurance relationship between employees and employers forever.

Dan Danner is the president and CEO of the National Federation of Independent Business.