Obamacare predicted "unintended consequence" #914: employers can't afford rising rates in anticipation of Obamacare.

The New York Times:

The shift is occurring, policy analysts and others say, as employers feel more pressure from the weak economy and the threat of even more expensive coverage under the new health care law.

In contrast to past practices of absorbing higher prices, some companies chose this year to keep their costs the same by passing the entire increase in premiums for family coverage onto their workers, according to a new survey released on Thursday by the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonprofit research group.

Workers' share of the cost of a family policy jumped an average of 14 percent, an increase of about $500 a year. The cost of a policy rose just 3 percent, to an average of $13,770.

There have been other times when the economy was "weak" and employers refrained from passing along these increases so one must assume that the primary reason for it is that Obamacare is coming and employers don't want to be stuck with unsustainable increases in insurance premiums.

This is logical. Obamacare is not. End of story.