Dear Business': The ACA was your CUE to get off the hook for providing health insurance

[TrollBuster9090]

to your employees. HELLO! You're supposed to be fighting to STRENGTHEN the ACA, not tear it down. This is your chance to divest yourself of the responsibility of organizing your employees health insurance plans. What the hell are you waiting for?

The United States is the only developed country where health insurance is tied to employment. It's a burden that only U.S. corporations are saddled with, and it's been putting them at a competitive disadvantage for years. All the other developed countries have either a single payer system, or a mix of private and public insurance; but NONE of them tie health insurance to employment.

I understand why some employees are misguided enough to fear the decoupling of health insurance with employment. FEAR. Pure and simple. Fear of the unknown, and fear that it will lead to a worse healthcare plan than you already have. In almost all cases, this fear is unjustified now that the Federal Government has mandated federal standards to healthcare plans.

I also understand why some misguided employers like healthcare insurance to be tied to employment. There are two general reasons:

1. Because you can treat your workers like shit, and they'll be afraid to leave for fear of losing their company health insurance plan, and

2. If you're a company that provides an IN HOUSE plan (like AOL does) you can play stupid shell games with your company's health insurance money, to increase profits and share prices. You can shift money around from 401K retirement plans to healthcare and back whenever you please, and blame it on your employees having too many 'distressed babies.'

YOU'RE BOTH WRONG. The sooner we decouple healthcare insurance from employment, the better off we'll all be. The fact that Obamacare gives employees greater flexibility to move from job to job, or move from full time work to part time work, and still have access to good healthcare is a VIRTUE of Obamacare, not a vice.

[Skidmore]

1. Health insurance benefits have been part of the business world's schtick

for not assuming risk and getting bailouts from the government.

[TrollBuster9090]

2. Pretty much. nt

[PoliticAverse]

3. The ACA doesn't really decouple insurance from employment. n/t

[TrollBuster9090]

5. I agree, but it easily could, with a few modifications, and some impetus from the business community

Here's how the 'negotiations' with the federal government would proceed. (Even thought the result is a foregone conclusion.)

1. Business says "we want to get out of the responsibility of providing health insurance to our employees."
2. Government says "no, you can't do that."
3. They 'compromise' on the idea of each company taking the amount of money they now spend per employee on health insurance, and turn that amount over to their employees to buy their own insurance through the exchanges.

Companies would then be off the hook for ORGANIZING the healthcare plans of their employees, the faux patriots can blather about this being an example of greater freedom of choice (which it would be), and employees would suddenly have access to PORTABLE HEALTHCARE INSURANCE, the way the introduction of the 401K system made company pensions portable.

The 401K system of making company pension plans portable, rather than being tied to one employer was a giant step in increasing freedom of choice for employees (and it never gets the credit it deserves for that). The second step should be portability of health insurance. As long as you're employed, your employer foots the bill for your health insurance, but control it, or make use of the money associated with it. If you move from one job to another, you may have to foot the bill for the insurance yourself for awhile, and you may get a subsidy for awhile to help pay for it, but you still keep the same plan.

[teenagebambam]

9. I disagree too

Two years ago I took a job which is a six hour drive from my home because it was full-time and offered insurance. My situation is maybe a little peculiar (I am married to a spouse of the same sex; though we live in a state where our marriage is federally recognized, my spouse works in a state where it is not, so I couldn't get on his insurance.) Now I am looking forward to leaving this position at the end of this academic year and being able to have affordable access to insurance even if I am partially- or un-employed for awhile. It's a complete game changer.

[jeff47]

12. Not yet. But it will.

The "Cadillac Health Insurance" tax is poorly indexed. In a about a decade, it will fall on pretty much all corporate health insurance plans. It will be much cheaper for companies to pay the fine and dump their employees on the exchanges.

It should be noted that all of those statements are good things. It decouples healthcare from work, and the exchanges are the route to single-payer.

[Travis_0004]

4. I disagree.

If my employee were to cut my health insurance, I would be looking for a new job tomorrow. Even if my employer were to take the money he contributes towards my insurance and give it to me I would be worse off with a policy on the exchange.

One oversight in the ACA is that health insurance through the exchange is only deductible to the extent which exceeds 10% AGI (was 7.5%, I think raising it was a mistake as well). Health insurance through an employer is paid with pretax income, so its fully deductible. In a sense I think the ACA encourages businesses who have largely lower paid employees to drop them on the exchange, but for an employer who has many skilled employees (who may not get a subsidy), they will be less likely to drop their insurance.

[TrollBuster9090]

6. Fair enough, but those are details that can be tweaked, provided the political will and incentive

is there. I think the ACA is still the best Trojan Horse to decouple employment from health insurance.

[riderinthestorm]

7. Its already starting to happen. What will accelerate it is when middle and upper management

are forced to get the same insurance as the rabble.

Right now the middle and upper management have better plans than the rest. Obama has signed an extension that lets corporations off the hook in forcing everyone onto the same field. As more and more corporations drop health care coverage as a perk, AND those employees are forced onto the exchanges, the pressure will grow.

Once the middle and upper managers are forced to deal with the same insurance as everyone else, they will demand the tweaks and changes on the current ACA plans (like single payer) that will permanently de-couple health insurance from employment.

The short-term pain however will be pretty harsh.

I wish the corporations had simply gotten behind a single payer instead of trying to drag out this charade. Its inevitable what's coming down the pike. Unfortunately its going to get worse before it gets better. When Vermont's single payer plan gets up and running, I hope the hand-writing is on the wall.

[DJ13]

8. In a sane world they would have pushed for true single payer

[TrollBuster9090]

15. Absolutely! But, since the US political world isn't a 'sane world' we have to settle for

settle for three Trojan Horses.

1. Replace the clusterF#ck of a 'system' we currently have with government mandated standards for private insurance, and bulk buying of insurance on a federal exchange.

2. Add a Public Option (ie-start with selling Medicaid to individuals who can afford better insurance for a rock bottom price of $35 per month, and Medicare to anybody 45 years and up for a better price.) Maybe merge veterans care with medicaid and medicare, and add all federal employees to it to create a healthcare administration that contains maybe 100 million people (when you combine all those groups). The combined healthcare system would use the Medicare administration apparatus, and (like Medicare) have an overhead cost of only 1.5%. No private HMO with an overhead of 18%, and CEOs like William McGuire (the head of UNH who ended up getting paid $1.6 BILLION BUCKS) could possibly compete with that. Then, finally...

3. Take the obvious last step of moving to single-payer, Medicare for all.

[obxhead]

10. Employers don't want OFF the hook for health ins.

The moment Single Payer finally becomes law here is the day we are free to seek new employment.

Health care policies keep us locked into our jobs. We either can't wait 3+ months for the availability, or we can't afford a new $1k+++ deduction to cover.

Single payer means employers can only compete on salary. They don't want that, particularly the huge corporate employers.

[riderinthestorm]

11. I completely disagree especially when it comes to the biggest international corporate players

Health care costs are an albatross around their neck dragging on their profitability and ability to compete with others who aren't similarly burdened because their countries have universal healthcare.

The costs to administer these plans are a drag.

Entire subsections if HR would be eliminated.

Honestly I can't believe big corporations haven't already jumped on the single payer bandwagon

[TrollBuster9090]

16. Well, the obvious reason is because the HMOs, who are also members of the (Star) Chamber of Commerce

don't want that.

That's why the ACA, with a Public Option, would have been such a good Trojan Horse, for getting to single payer.

[Proud Liberal Dem]

13. Haven't a lot of companies started decoupling them anyway?

Most seen to be cutting hours, changing statuses to avoid having to provide it anyway

[TrollBuster9090]

17. They've been doing that for 30 years already. (Cutting hours to avoid paying workers benifits)

"Obamacare" has just become yet another convenient thing to blame it on. Kill a full time job, and turn it into three part time jobs, and say "don't look at ME, look at the big bad gubmint!"

But, as I said above, Clinton was bang on with the idea of creating PORTABLE pension plans (401K), so that your retirement pension is not tied to WHICH company you work for, just tied to your being employed. It increased employee mobility, which can and does improve employment conditions.

The ACA will, I believe, do the same thing for portable healthcare.

[Proud Liberal Dem]

18. Obamacare has been a convenient "whipping boy" for all of the bad stuff

that has been going on in the healthcare system for a long time. It's really quite sad, really.

[TrollBuster9090]

20. I agree. So, our job should be to call them on their bullshit whenever they try to pull that.

We managed to call Papa John's Pizza on their bullshit when they raised the price of pizza and blamed it on Obamacare, and we called AOL on their bullshit when they tried to loot their employees 401K pension plan and blame it on Obamacare, and a couple of unfortunate mothers.

We have to continue to do this. If we're successfull enough at shaming these people whenever they pull that stunt, maybe they'll stop.

[Rex]

14. GOP business owners are furious that Obama took away one of their tools of tyranny!

And as usual, they are taking it out on their employees! THAT is what they are mad about. The loss of one key part of their control over their workers.

[TrollBuster9090]

22. I wouldn't put Picard in that category though.

The Firenge, yes. The Klingon HMO policy is more like the Republican one....'die quickly.' The Klingon plan differs, however, in that you're supposed to die with honor. The Republican plan is to die quickly, and in squalor, while your HMO goes through your wallet.

[Rex]

23. No...Picard is giving the double facepalm over the death of Net Neutrality.

That is why he is in my sig line now.

[TrollBuster9090]

24. He never should have let Worf talk him into that.

[FarCenter]

19. The ACA is designed to incentivize employers to provide health care.

Without the requirements on employer provided health care for medium and large employers, the ACA would never have passed. Health care is one of the benefits that unions bargain for it, and organized labor would not have supported the ACA if the employer health insurance system were eliminated.

You can read all about it in Treasury Decision 9655, a mere 227 pages of turgid bureaucratese.

Shared Responsibility for Employers Regarding Health Coverage

http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/ACA-FullRule-02102014.pdf

[TrollBuster9090]

21. I agree, but that doesn't necessarily mean they have to organize and administer it. As I said above

an easy out for them would be to move from organizing and administering health insurance for their employees to simply forking over an equivalent amount of cash to their employees specifically to allow them to buy their own health insurance policies on the exchanges. If that were done, the union and worker organizations that lobbied and bargained for it wouldn't have wasted their efforts. And this would actually be to their advantage, because if you simply take the amount of money a company spends on healthcare, divide it by the number of employees, and give each employee their share, it would be a fair sum of money, given that businesses absorb quite a lot of their healthcare money in administrative costs.

The obvious reason why the companies don't want to do that is because they would no longer have the flexibility to play SHELL GAMES with the money. Why the UNIONS would be against that, however, is a mystery to me.