1. Reviewing the methodology, those polled were small business owners; very few with “corporate executives.”
2. Insurance costs to employers (and thus employees) have risen every year. Framing it the way this article has doesn’t really mean anything.
3. When dropping benefits, it is expected that employers compensate employees for this compensation loss - and they will, or they won’t have workers anymore.
4. Actually, I think they have to as part of ObamaCare. (Not sure.)
5. Private insurance exchanges are about to explode. They’ve been approved in 49 states and will compete with the crappy state and federal exchanges. Brokers have incentive to sell on the private exchanges (not much though) and people who care about their health and family will go with private exchanges - keeping the private insurers in business.
I hope your conclusion is correct, but I don’t think it will be borne out.
The cost of employer-provided health insurance really cannot be separated from wages from the employer’s perspective - the sum of wages and benefits are all part of the cost of an employee.
So far as I can tell, Obamacare is structured to encourage employers to one of several things, none of them good for the employees: Drop coverage completely and pay a $2,000.00 penalty; drop headcount under the minimum (50?) for the law to apply; reduce hours or use more temps/contractors to minimize full timers; hammer employees with higher deductibles and premium shares.
The result will be masssive numbers of people who are kicked out of employer-sponsored plans. The employers will use this as a chance to substantially reduce their cost of compensation. Employees will not see anything remotely approaching a comensurate increase in monetary compensation, certainly not anywhere near enough to buy adequate insurance as an individual. The individual’s bargaining and purchasing power is nothing like that of an employer. The individual exchanges will not materialize, or at least not fast enough to avoid a meme taking hold that the only alternative is to have Uncle Sugar step in and give you ‘free’ healthcare (that will be paid for by ‘making the 1% pay their fair share’). In return, every election going forward (until the country collapses under the fiscal burden) will be a choice of which candidate promises more goodies. That is, for a while, then it will be be a choice of which candidate make the more solemn face when promising to uneff the national healthcare system that let your grandmother die choking on her dentures on a gurney in the janitor’s closet, or that didn’t let you get a CAT scan until your tumor was Stage IV and then said it was past time for chemo. (”Care for some pentobarbital”?)
End result is the same, you will have free healthcare - right up until you get really sick. Then, Citizen, you must do your patriotic duty and get out there on that ice floe. The cost of your care is preventing us from giving out more free phones. Actually, it will be more compassionate than that - they’ll let you take the blue pill - right after you sign this donor card.