Medical cost inflation has been running at historical lows. I certainly don't give the ACA the credit but the fact is increased health insurance costs for employees are due to employer decisions, not any laws or underlying cost increases.
Medical cost inflation has been running at historical lows because with rising deductibles people can't afford to pay for their medical care even when they ARE covered. That's exactly what the article is saying. What's the point of paying $X per month for insurance coverage (regardless of whether the employer or employee pays for it) if you have to run up several thousand dollars in medical bills each year before your insurance company covers anything? Watch this thread for a few hours, and you'll probably read several posts from people who stopped taking medication simply because their insurance plans wouldn't pay for the prescriptions anymore even if the medication was actually covered under their plans.
In the group health market insurers look at the demographics of the group, in this case employees, and quote rates appropriately. In your hypothetical they would indeed have to offer OB/GYN coverage but would discount the cost to $0 based on the demographics.
Medical cost inflation has been running at historical lows because with rising deductibles people can't afford to pay for their medical care even when they ARE covered.
This is another of my pet peeves. There's a lot of talk about rising deductibles, but in the individual market that's strictly a matter of consumer choice. Every exchange offers a range of plans, some with very high deductibles and some with almost none. Of course, the premiums also vary just as widely. It's up to the consumer whether they want cheap premiums or low deductibles.
In the employer market the deductible is strictly a decision made by the employer, and the trade off is the same - lower deductible, higher premium.
One caveat is that most of my experience has been with larger companies and I'm extrapolating what I know about that market to the employer market as a whole.
My main point is that the employer market is a completely different animal than the individual, and for various reasons people conflate the two when it suits their purposes.