Medindia LOGIN REGISTER
Medindia

The End of Employer Sponsored Insurance With Obamacare?

by Vanessa Jones on Sep 1 2014 12:34 PM

 The End of Employer Sponsored Insurance With Obamacare?
“You can keep your plan and your doctor, no matter what” This was the false promise made by President Obama when he brought out his health care plan.
Now, according to analysts and Obama’s former advisor Zeke Emanuel the prediction is that 80% of employer sponsored plans will disappear in the coming 10 years.

Analysts predict that as ObamaCare takes hold, it will mean the end of employer-provided insurance; with former Obama adviser Zeke Emanuel predicting that 80 percent of such plans will disappear within ten years.

"It's going to actually be better for people," Emanuel argued. "They'll have more choice. Most people who work for an employer and get their coverage through an employer do not have choice."

Michael Thompson, from the firm explained, "The companies will really be hard pressed to justify why they would continue to have to spend the kind of money they spend by offering insurance through corporate plans when there's an alternative that's subsidized by the government."

"For a worker making only $15 an hour, typical employer coverage for a family costs $15,000 or $16,000, that's more than half of that worker’s annual wage," explained health care economist John Goodman.

"So lots of employers,” he argued, will “find it attractive to send their low income employees to the exchange.”

Advertisement
Initially, well before the law passed, Obama argued employer coverage was too important to change, saying anything that would weaken it would be wrong.

In his second debate with Republican nominee John McCain in 2008, Obama said, "This would lead to the unraveling of the employer-based health care system. That, I don't think, is the kind of change that we need."

Advertisement
This was in reference to a proposal from McCain in 2008 where every American was offered a $5,000 tax credit instead of tax-free insurance only for those who got coverage at work.

In the same debate, Obama said, "Now, Senator McCain has a different kind of approach. He says that he's going to give you a $5,000 tax credit. What he doesn't tell you is that he is going to tax your employer-based health care benefits for the first time ever."

Goodman felt that Obama "accused John McCain of trying to undermine employer-provided health insurance. And now we find that ObamaCare is having the very impact that Obama warned against. It may completely erode health insurance provided by employers."



Source-Medindia


Advertisement