Deloitte: One in 10 U.S. Employers to Drop Health Coverage

[alp227]

Source: Wall Street Journal

Around one in 10 employers in the U.S. plans to drop health coverage for workers in the next few years as the bulk of the federal health-care law begins, and more indicated they may do so over time, according to a study to be released Tuesday by consulting company Deloitte.

The majority of Americans under age 65 who have health insurance get it through an employer. A big question about the law is whether companies will continue to offer coverage after a slate of changes starting in 2014 will give Americans more options for buying coverage without the help of an employer.

Most companies currently offer coverage voluntarily because they say it helps them recruit and retain workers. Critics of the overhaul argue that it could encourage companies to drop those plans if they become more expensive since the law requires them to provide a set level of benefits or pay a penalty.

Deloitte's findings differ from estimates by rival firm McKinsey & Co. last year that found 30% of employers say they would "definitely or probably" stop offering health insurance after 2014, as well as calculations by the Congressional Budget Office that estimated around 7% of workers could lose coverage under the law by 2019.

Read more: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390443437504577545770682810842.html

---

Google the title for full article; this is for now a WSJ exclusive.

[pnwmom]

1. And how many would have dropped coverage anyway, because of rising costs?

This should at least bend the cost curve down, according to the CBO.

[robinlynne]

7. Good point.

[Sherman A1]

12. Precisely

This is just cover for them to do what they had already planned.

[harun]

26. +1

[Xedniw]

27. Not nearly as many

ACA gave companies the green light to dump insurance costs onto the employee completely. Interestingly, Hillary Clinton's 1994 plan would have made the employers themselves responsible for insurance, not the employees.

[pnwmom]

28. That's not what the CBO numbers projected. Hillary's plan was better, but it didn't get passed.

That's not Obama's fault. He was dealing with a tea bagger House by the time he was elected, and Hillary's plan never would have made it through Congress.

[nanabugg]

2. Good. So the private sector insurers want no parts of their own system. Universal healthcare...

Medicare for all...here we come!!!!

[lovuian]

14. The US government workers will go to Obamacare

and that will save the US government tons of dollars
what is good for the American people will be good for the Senators and Congressman and President

[bluestateguy]

3. Potentially a good thing

Many liberals and conservatives have argued for years that health insurance should be divorced from employment.

[indivisibleman]

4. true and I think it would be great.

Too many people work for a business entirely because they want the health insurance.
I think it would be a good thing if insurance was divorced from employment.

[yardwork]

25. Employer-offered insurance is subsidized by the government. It's a very unfair system.

If employers drop this benefit, then it pushes more people toward a government-sponsored solution, which is the right direction. this is good news. It means the dismantling of our two-tiered system. Now the pressure needs to be put on Congress to expand Medicare for all. Congress has wonderful government-funded health insurance. We all deserve the same, whether we are employed by a huge corporation or not.

[indivisibleman]

5. two interesting points

I am not sure what the comparison costs would be today but I have two stories from back a few years that show that there was little to no benefit to have health insurance through your company versus purchasing as an individual. Many companies lie about how much they contribute toward health care.

In about 1992 I was a supervisor and a part time employee wanted to go full time to get health coverage. I was happy for this because he was a great employee and I could use his abilities for my team. He decided to see how much he would save by buying the insurance independently and he found that the cost, apples to apples was almost the same.

In about 2004 our insurance was replaced at work because our employer said it was too costly for them. The insurance they replaced it with was really quite miserable in comparison to the previous insurance which we really liked. So we decided to see how much more it would be to purchase this insurance ourselves. It turned out the cost was about 80 dollars more a month so we bought it ourselves.

Did you ever wonder why businesses are so concerned about having to reveal what they contribute to their health plans? They say it would be so much work to report these numbers on our w2s. But I think they don't want to show their hand. Perhaps these companies are cancelling their insurance plans to hide the fact that they have been scamming their employees for years. Not sure.

The two events above were for Madison, WI.

[robinlynne]

8. The insurance we can get as individuals doesnt come close! perhaps now that will change.

[pnwmom]

10. If you have a serious preexisting condition the rates are far lower in a large group plan

than in any individual plan, if you could have managed to get coverage at all.

[mopinko]

31. how old was this person?

yeah, young healthy people can get it cheap. the rest of us, not so much.

[joeglow3]

37. I'll bet anything they were young and healthy

The reason is that everyone charges a FLAT rate in a group plan (the 65 year old pays the same as the 25 year old). Ask one of your 60 year old employees to price an individual plan.

[starroute]

6. This would give them less reason to overwork people instead of hiring more employees

At present, the health insurance costs for adding an additional employee are a major reason why employers would rather force their existing employees to work 60 hours a week. If those went away, the available jobs might be distributed more widely, bringing down the unemployment rate and giving young people more of a chance to get started.

There would be other dislocations, of course, but in the long run this could only be for the best.

[OmahaBlueDog]

9. One problem many employers could have: young workers may be among the first to opt for the exchanges

Younger workers may be able to shop for better deals in the exchanges, and opt out of company group plans. This could accelerate the departure of employers away from group health. I suspect large employers will simply offer an allowance to go get healthcare.

[Kablooie]

11. Medical insurance that's tied to your job doesn't make much sense anyway.

It was only offered originally, as now, as an added perk to get employees.
It never should have become an essential feature of employment.

[lovuian]

13. Companies want Obamacare

it makes them competitive with the rest of the world

we are headed for Universal coverage

[musiclawyer]

20. True

Yes we are headed to medicare for all. That is why the right wing fought so hard to stop it. POTUS took a lot of heat for taking single payer off the table. That was a mistake leading to the bad PR from what we got. But its becoming apparant that he knew one crack in the dam was all that was needed and the dam wopuld eventually fall.

Off topic--but health care is a good analogy for the war on drugs. The vested interests will fight tooth and nail to stop the legalization measure out West. Because they know once one state legalizes, their golden good is pretty much in the oven.

[mikekohr]

40. Bingo!

[tanyev]

15. Had one announce that he was going to do that in Sunday's Dallas Morning News LTTEs.

Some of us will opt out

I am a small-business owner. Over the course of my career I have provided my employees with competitive salaries, health care insurance and a matching contribution retirement plan. My already high taxes, health care costs and regulatory burden will undoubtedly increase under existing and proposed legislation by the Obama administration and the Democratic Party.

Should these conditions prevail, I will no longer participate. I will simply close my business, layoff my employees and retire, as fortunately, I have the resources to do. I don't think I'm alone in my feelings based on my discussions with other business owners, physicians and other professionals.

Maybe you should think about this before you cast your vote in November.

http://letterstotheeditorblog.dallasnews.com/


I hope all of his employees start looking for other employment immediately.

[mopinko]

32. bullshit.

[treestar]

36. He was going to retire anyway

obviously and is using this as an excuse to blame Obama and the Democrats for it.

[lobodons]

16. Wages better go up

If they drop thier coverage, they better raise their employers wages accordingly. One thing people need to realize that going to a single payer sytem would actually increase their take home pay over and above what it would cost them to buy into a medicare for all plan.

[riderinthestorm]

17. I believe this will be the fastest way to single payer - when companies start dropping coverage

I've said this a few times over the past months (here's one thread I started: http://www.democraticunderground.com/1002880534)

De-coupling health insurance from employment may actually push the companies to pressure the government to open up more options as the companies push people off their health insurance programs. There will definitely be a period of dislocation but all of those middle and upper management folks are NOT going to want to be exposed to no insurance, or high insurance costs. When they also have to fend for themselves they'll look across the border (or across the oceans) and discover the whole other world of single payer/universal health care.

Even faster than states individually setting up public options on the exchanges, corporate pressure would create even faster change I believe.

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

18. It's the second-fastest way

The fastest way would be for the government to drop coverage for members of congress. But that ain't gonna happen.

Insurance companies will fight single-payer with payments and job offers to congress and staff. The corruption on this issue will be monumental.

[riderinthestorm]

19. Oh touche and right on. I completely agree.

There will definitely be dislocation and pain (and corruption) but sooner or later most companies will de-couple employment from health insurance and when management is scrambling to find what's out there, and what it costs, I think the pressure from the Chamber of Commerce will begin to lean hard on Congress.

They are the ones who have travelled and seen what's available in other countries. And/or they're familiar with the effects of manufacturing costs being lower in countries that do offer universal health care and how our system ensures we aren't competitive.

But you make a very valid point.

[woo me with science]

29. Not as things currently stand. No way.

Medicare for all is not in the blueprints for the corporate state they are building. They are showing much more interest in developing police state methods to put down resistance to the new normal than they are in listening to any of us anymore. Even our Democratic President has proposed raising the eligibility age for Medicare, not lowering it.

PROFIT is the only goal now.

[riderinthestorm]

33. I keep seeing this as a race in my mind - do the Dems get to install Medicare for all

(and the people finally "see?&quot or do the Rethugs get to install a fascist state first?

I know that seems too simple but it really feels like something big is shifting and if we don't get our side over the "finish line" first, then America's grand experiment with a representative government will have failed. We'll simply be a history lesson someday in the future....

[woo me with science]

39. There is no evidence whatsoever

that corporate Dems in office now want Medicare for all. Zero, zip, nada. NOBODY with any serious influence is proposing it. There is ample evidence of collusion with Republicans to impose austerity budgets and profit corporate middlemen by entrenching them into our health care system.

Our Democratic President has already proposed raising the Medicare age, not lowering it. In reality, we are now looking forward to a corporate, bipartisan deficit commission that puts both Social Security and Medicare on the table.

CEOs and Simpson-Bowles 3.0 -- SS & Medicare will be on the table no matter who wins
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10021044907

Democrats need to wake up and realize that we have a problem of corporate money in our party, too. Change is going to require that the people rise up and DEMAND it, because it is not going to come by simply hoping that Democrats will choose to represent us this time.

I agree with you that we are in a race. We have seen the police state metastasize under this administration as quickly as it did under Bush. The corporate one percent are bipartisan on that. We need to hurry up and demand the corporate money and influence out of government, including our own party, before it is too late to resist.

[kimbutgar]

21. I can't understand why businesses are lobbying against single payer

as the costs would be taken from them and folks would pay premiums to the government like medicare. This would also make US companies more competitive in our multinational business world considering we are the only industrialized nation in the world that doesn't have a single payer system. Obviously the for profit health care companies lobbyists are strong and don't want to lose their cash cows by ripping over consumers with higher premiums. Hey that CEO needs to make 10+ million dollar bonuses while denying someone cancer treatment.

[BanTheGOP]

22. Health care costs need to be borne by the general tax fund, not individuals anyway

One of the biggest mistakes was to individualize health care so everyone pays a tax. It should not be mandated as such, but should be a cost derived from the general fund. This way, the poor aren't double dinged by no healthcare with low wages at work and having to pay their own part for Obamacare.

[Troy Cookin with Gas]

23. well thats

just wrong. They need to be fined for dropping people

[riderinthestorm]

24. They'll pay the penalty under the ACA but that penalty is still cheaper than insuring an employee

Honestly, anything that gets us closer to Medicare for all is a good thing imho. Imagine getting health care and not having to worry that you're going to be bankrupt at the end...



(swoon!)

[underpants]

30. $2,000 per employee but that is cheaper than actually paying half of the premiums

most employers pay 1/2 of the premium.

[riderinthestorm]

35. I know. My husband's former employer paid half

and he paid half. So his monthly premium was $350/month which meant the employer was (presumably) paying @ $4000 per year.

Paying the penalty for each employee AND getting the additional bonus of dropping the company's health insurance administrative hassle and staff will be a no brainer.....

[treestar]

34. Not entirely bad, since it could decouple coverage from employment

Coverage should exist separately from employment, so that it is not a consideration on whether to take or stay in a job.

[nanabugg]

38. ++1000 nt