Posted on 08/25/2011 10:17:50 AM PDT by markomalley
A new survey of 368 midsize to large companies found that 29% of them are considering terminating their active employee health care plans when Obamacare is full implemented in 2014. Only 71% of employers surveyed said they did not expect to drop their health coverage, while 20% said they did not know and 9% said they were planning to exit.
The latest survey, conducted by Towers Watson, echoes an ealier survey by McKinsey & Co. finding that 30% of private-sector employers were planning to drop their employee health insurance coverage by 2014. When the Congressional Budget Office crunched Obamacare's spending numbers, they estimated that only 7% of employees currently covered by employer-sponsored plans would lose their plans.
The gap between the CBO estimates and the employer surveys could end up raising Obamacare's price tag by hundreds of billions a year. For every employee that loses their health insurance at work, the federal government would have to pay thousands in subsidies to help that individual, and often their family, buy insurance on the yet-to-be-created health exchanges. If the percentage of employers that drop their health plans is near 30 percent, Obamacare's price tag would rise by almost $1 trillion.
Paul Fronstin of the Employee Benefit Research Institute suggests that if a critical mass of companies starts to drop coverage, many more will them. Fronstin told the Associated Press: "If one employer does it, other likely will follow."
The Obama administration disputed the Towers Watson findings pointing to increased employer health coverage in Massachusetts after Romneycare became law. But after rising in 2008, employer coverage levels have since fallen back to pre-reform rates in Massachusetts. And Romneycare did not include a Cadillac Tax on expensive health policies like Obamacare does. The Towers Watson survey found that 43% of employers believed they would be subject to the Obamacare excise tax on expensive health plans.
The more companies are forced to drop healthcare, the more will be the public pressure for socialized medicine - which IS, of course, what B.O. wants.
This is all part of Obama’s plan. He wants to get employers to drop private coverage and get another 15 million people on Medicaid. Medicaid reimburses physicians at far lower rates than either Medicare or private insurance. Doctors will have no choice but to stop taking government insurance (Medicare or Medicaid), because they’ll go bankrupt otherwise. Once 75% of the country is on Medicare or Medicaid, doctors will clamor for a single-payer system, because they’ll have seen their income cut by up to 30% under Obama’s plan. If Obama is re-elected, he or another Democrat in power will then acquiesce to their demand and foist single-payer on all of us, and then this country is screwed.
Exactly - see #3.
I’m studying with one of my clients how to market the concept of on-site clinics as an alternative to, not a supplement for, individual health insurance.
not “may”, WILL
not “may”, WILL
We can’t afford universal healthcare, so when the companies drop all hell will break loose.
As well as I have heard death panels are in full force.Telling 80 year olds they can’t get treatment injections/pain IV’s even.
This was the plan along
uhhh....what would make all those doctors think they would get a higher payment out of a Government Single Payer plan than they can get out of a Government Medicare or Medicaid plan?
The problem is the same. Some bureaucrat says “we’re paying you $X for that” and you either like it or lump it.
They won’t get a higher payment, but the federal government will probably buy them off by offering to forgive their federal student loans or something similar. Trust me, that is what Obama wants to do. He wants single-payer. ObamaCare is just a backdoor into single-payer.
I have a Doctor appt. and it is with my choice of my Doctor!
bump
The irony is is the number of uninsured that we want to be increasing if we are to control the costs of health care.
Health care like any other services is subject to supply and demand. That means prices goes up more people should be less eager to utilize the services both generally and specifically.
Health insurance whether it is goverment provided or private removes any cost citing or price watching incentive from the system. As a result people become very liberal in their healthcare choices being oblivious/apathetic to the financial and otherwise consequences simply because they personalty don’t feel most all of em.
Naturally as more people are in this situation the cost of theses services(be they health care or anything else) go up almost as fast as possible. This is why raising co-pays reduces cost growth.
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