Nearly one in 10 midsize or large employers expects to stop offering health coverage to workers once federal insurance exchanges start in 2014, according to a survey from a large benefits consultant.
Towers Watson also found in a survey completed last month that an additional 20 percent of companies are unsure about what they will do.
Another big benefits consultant, Mercer, found in a June survey of large and smaller employers that 8 percent are either “likely” or “very likely” to end health benefits once the exchanges start.
They should all drop health care coverage. Health care coverage should not be an employer benefit anymore than paying for your kids prep school or college. Especially when it’s a huge benefit that’s not even taxed. Just pay people money (or let them earn their own money) and let them buy their own insurance.
The Church Pension Fund provides a Medicare supplement to clergy and widow(er)s. It helps a lot, and I’d hate to see it taken away. When I was in active ministry I always negotiated for full family coverage – which did not count as income to me – rather than cash. I don’t know whether that was a wise economic decision but it certainly paid off in peace of mind. We have been blessed with generally good health but if we had had sickness I knew that the major expenses would be covered.
1. All this is fine, except forone thing: You forgot to mention the greed of the insurance companies. The only thing they’re interested in is the dollar sign. Profit, profit, and [b]more[/b] profit!
The reason health insurance was given a tax break was to encourage employers to offer it. Back in the 50’s companies could use coverage as a lever to gain more qualified candidates.
I suspect that the insurance companies of the time were offering a service and making a small profit, and were not competing for investors by offering high dividends, but rather making a reasonable profit. How our stock market operates now is far different than how it operated fifty years ago – now more people make money on the market itself than by earning dividends from their shares.
cennydd, profits, profits, profits is what makes the U.S. the greatest country in the world. If health insurance didn’t make a profit, they wouldn’t be in business. I know that you have government insurance. Most of us don’t. The inability of government to contain costs is the main driver of medical inflation. Private insurers care about fraud. The government couldn’t give a hoot which is why medicare and medicaid (and SSI) is awash in fraud. It’s not the government’s money, so the government isn’t interested in stamping out fraud.
[url=http://biz.yahoo.com/p/sum_qpmd.html ]The medical insurance profits are in the middle of the pack as far as industries go[/url], behind auto parts stores but slightly ahead of office supply stores. Are these other industries “greedy”? I hope so. I want to be able to drive a couple of miles to a car parts store and buy an air filter.
I agree with Catholic Mom, sort of. We need to move away from employee based health care and give tax breaks to the individuals rather than the corporations. But buying individual policies, the little guy would get clobbered. We need to increase competition. I can buy car insurance from Connecticut. Why can’t I buy health insurance from there? This was killed by Obama. Who was in the backroom with negotiators of Obamacare? Health insurance and pharmaceutical industry officials. I would like to make it easier for any group of people to get together and purchase insurance. A town in Oregon could advertise to business, “Move here, we have a great health insurance plan for our citizens.” The numismatists of Illinois could have a group plan, etc.
By the way, the number of companies dropping health insurance was way underestimated by the CBO when scoring Obamacare. This and other accounting flim-flam are why the cost analysis is a joke and that the final price tag will literally kill the American economy if not repealed. American business knows this. Paul Ryan knows this. I am pretty sure that Obama knows this and he doesn’t care.
I agree with RobRoy — we need to have cross-state ability to purchase health insurance, we need to be able to build our own buying-blocs, and we need to delete all the silly extras that insurance companies are *forced* by law to offer in insurance plans which then drive up the costs even further.
If I want to buy a plain-vanilla health insurance plan I should be allowed to do so. Instead, I am forced at great cost to buy health insurance plans larded up with all sorts of coverage that I don’t want.
And I agree with what Sarah said except the part of offering insurance plans that aren’t government approved. You can get a non-standard plan…if you are a union and you get an Obamacare waiver. [url=http://thehill.com/blogs/healthwatch/health-reform-implementation/177581-hhs-grants-106-new-healthcare-waivers ]We just had another round of waivers and the Obama administration, as always, announces this late Friday afternoon to avoid the bad press[/url].