Employer Health Insurance Is Increasingly Unaffordable, Study Finds
2017 -"How Trump can still sabotage ObamaCare "The 7 Biggest Cons In The GOP's Obamacare Repeal Pitch""
Jessica McCormick at home with Koda, her medical alert dog, in Washington, D.C. She quit her job to be eligible for Medicaid. Samuel Corum for The New York Times
By Reed Abelson
Published Sept. 25, 2019 Updated Sept. 30, 2019
Jessie McCormick had to quit her job to afford health care.
Ms. McCormick, 27, who has a heart condition, had an opportunity to move from part time to full time in her job at a small nonprofit in Washington. Working full time would qualify her for the firm’s health plan.
But she calculated that her out-of-pocket costs would be at least $1,200 per month, about double the money she had left after paying her rent and utilities.
Instead, she quit her job last summer so her income would be low enough to enroll in Medicaid, which will cover all her medical expenses. “I’m trying to do some side jobs,” she said.
Employers remain the main source of health insurance in the United States, covering about 153 million people. But premiums and deductibles are pushing employer-based coverage increasingly out of reach, according to a new analysis released Wednesday by the Kaiser Family Foundation .. https://www.kff.org/health-costs/report/2019-employer-health-benefits-survey , which conducts a survey of employers every year.
[...]
Many businesses have opted to increase deductibles instead of premiums. “A lot of employers with lower-paid employees want to offer a low-cost option that is typically a high-deductible plan,” said Chris Bartnik, a senior vice president at Lockton Companies who advises businesses on their coverage.
But some of his clients who once embraced high deductibles have changed their minds, worried their workers can’t afford to go to the doctor.
Some large employers are adjusting the premiums and deductibles based on an employee’s income. JPMorgan Chase pays 80 percent of the premiums for workers making under $60,000, and the company lowered the annual deductible by $750 to $2,000 or less, depending on the plan they choose.
H.A. Cover & Son Lumber, in Thayer, Mo., has decided to pay the bulk of premiums for workers, but the plans come with a deductible of $2,500 for an individual and $5,000 for a family. The company is paying about $16,000 a month to cover the 11 people enrolled in the plan.
The deductible “is higher than we wanted to go,” said Marion Cowen, who oversees benefits for the business, but the cost for more comprehensive coverage was prohibitive. “We don’t know what we’re going to do if it goes up much more,” she said.
She is intrigued by the idea of being allowed to buy into a government plan, like Medicaid or Medicare, that is being floated by some of the candidates. “We would consider it, yes, we would,” she said, if the option saved money and provided employees with high-quality coverage.
The Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll found that about two-thirds of voters supported the idea of allowing people to buy into Medicare. “Some states are looking at a public option,” said David Chase, who leads the national outreach efforts for Small Business Majority, an advocacy group that supported the Affordable Care Act. He said the group is talking to various states about allowing small businesses the option of buying into a government program.
“There are a lot of hypothetical proposals out there,” said Neil Trautwein, vice president of health care policy at the National Retail Federation, who said his members are increasingly concerned about rising health care costs. Companies are not as keen on offering less generous plans, he said, but would be open to other alternatives.
At Bagel Grove in Utica, N.Y., most of the 20 employees are now covered by Medicaid, said Anne Wadsworth, one of the owners. She took advantage of the tax credits available to small businesses that helped pay for the cost of coverage under the Affordable Care Act .. https://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/05/business/small-businesses-health-insurance-ACA.html?module=inline , but the credits ran out. While she still covers 45 percent of the premiums, all but one of her employees, herself included, have found better plans on their own.
“I was all on board for Obamacare,” she said, but it proved not to be “a long-term solution. It doesn’t lower the costs for people.”
Ms. Wadsworth is wary of the sweeping plans now proposed by the Democratic presidential candidates, which she worries will become a political football, like the Affordable Care Act, and fail to address the underlying issues.
“I just think health care costs need to go down,” she said.
JimLur, Maria56 - How Republicans quietly sabotaged Obamacare long before Trump came into office Billions that should go to Obamacare are missing, thanks to senators like Marco Rubio Thom Hartmann, Alternet Wednesday, Mar 22, 2017 07:44 PM http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=129961788
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