This is the libertarian critique of a lot of labor policy. People think they can just have the government mandate that businesses do XYZ for all their employees and all those jobs will continue to exist just as before, but with XYZ benefits. Pure win!
The problem is, job providers can also just stop providing the jobs that are no longer in their interest to provide when the extra burden of XYZ is added.
That's the trouble with a free society. If you make something more costly to do, people will do less of it.
(In all fairness I hear you can sometimes get away with this, e.g. some studies say minimum wage doesn't necessarily reduce available jobs, but it's very tricky. I think you will ultimately pay the piper some way or another.)
"People think they can just have the government mandate that businesses do XYZ for all their employees and all those jobs will continue to exist just as before"
No they don't. That sounds like something you think people think.
Your assertion that not a single person thinks this is one that would require truly extraordinary evidence. People believe in evil space lasers controlled by the lizard people. It is fair to assume that even amongst crazy beliefs, there are at least a few people who believe it (or are at least willing to claim so online)
I've met plenty of people who assume "legislation that requires X benefit" is a pure good. You can explain to them how this is false, and they usually feel a bit silly for missing the obvious here, but they absolutely had that belief.
I'm really not sure why you would possibly think this is some straw man argument.
You were asserting, without evidence or even rationale, what "people think". So feel free to take your own advice and stop making up fantasies about how strangers think.
I'll leave it up to the audience which is more plausible, given the policies we have today and the public discourse around those policies:
A. Basically everyone has a nuanced understanding of the trade-offs involved in mandating businesses to do things.
B. A sizable proportion of people and politicians neglect, in their thinking, the unintended negative consequences of mandating businesses to do things.
I admit I may be speculating a bit, since people are not eager to volunteer what they neglect in their thinking, but I don't find it difficult to determine between these two options what is more likely.
The other way to look at it is that by those businesses not meeting the obligations of a (dumb) system where healthcare is tied to employment, everyone else subsidizes their employees. I'm not interested in subsidizing Walmart so they can pay more people less money and become even more dominant - removing the availability of higher quality goods from the market in many locales - as a result.
The problem is, job providers can also just stop providing the jobs that are no longer in their interest to provide when the extra burden of XYZ is added.
That's the trouble with a free society. If you make something more costly to do, people will do less of it.
(In all fairness I hear you can sometimes get away with this, e.g. some studies say minimum wage doesn't necessarily reduce available jobs, but it's very tricky. I think you will ultimately pay the piper some way or another.)