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.
If the comment doesn't apply to you personally, feel free to ignore it. But don't pretend you can speak for everyone.