Elizabeth Warren’s early studies showed, even when people have health insurance. These benefits include health insurance, and the pre-tax savings accounts now offered by many employers. Not exactly the way most Americans want to limit health care cost inflation.
“Are we driving employers away from providing health insurance?” she asked.
It noted that the losses will be offset to some degree by Affordable Care Actprovisions “to buffer health plans from significant losses from large numbers of costly members”, and that affected insurers are also seeking rate hikes to alleviate the financial stress, although those “can present their own problems”.
A survey conducted by the California Wellness Foundation finds that 58 percent of voting Californians are satisfied with the state’s health care system, while 34 percent are not.
And let’s be clear: There is absolutely no real-world evidence to suggest that employers or employees will become “smarter health care shoppers” as a result of this tax.
Joe Kra of the benefits consultancy Mercer said he believes many employers will be required to make fundamental changes in their health plans to mitigate the tax’s impact.
Roughly 379,000 people are covered under Highmark health plans sold in the exchanges. Savvy consumers see it as a way to stretch their health care dollars. Highmark health plans cover 5.3 million people in Delaware, Pennsylvania and West Virginia.
The article tells the story of Miriam Uribe, a 20-year-old college student who has been enrolled in Medi-Cal, California’s health insurance program for low-income people. When purchasing insurance through an exchange, you must apply for it in the state of your legal residence.
For many companies, what in 2009 was only a hazy notion of a future requirement is now on the doorstep, as business owners and HR staff finalize the options they will present employees in starting in October, the traditional open-enrollment period for policies taking effect the following year. Major Republican health overhaul plans also have proposed curbs.
High-deductible plans and HSAs continue to grow despite the restrictions in the PPACA, the writers note. The law requires the national government to gradually reduce its share down to 90 percent by 2020. When the Affordable Care Act was being debated, an amendment was offered – by Sens. But it is primarily created to protect you from very high medical costs in worst-case scenarios like serious accidents or illnesses.
Demographics in school districts are similar to state employees, and they’re dealing with the state’s higher health costs as well, Hayes said. The requirement on companies that size was initially slated to take effect in 2014 but was delayed, with additional uncertainty due to last spring’s U.S. Supreme Court decision on a challenge to Obamacare. New competition will help hold down premiums, while insurers no longer can drop people if they get sick.
Date: September 6, 2015