No, not more of Obama or HHS Sebelius deciding that they are going to set aside yet another part of the law that they struggled so hard to pass. Either they can’t meet the deadlines (even as they wrote the timelines), it is no longer politically expedient (even as only Democrats voted for it – remember Carol Shea-Porter (D-NH) and Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH)? No bi-partisanship here for this bucket of suck), or granting waivers that they have no authorization to give (but have to keep their political allies in line).
No, this is more of employers looking at their bottom line, in what is still for many a depressed economy in which margins are thin and thinner, and saying that we are going to cut our healthcare costs. They did it by cutting hours for employees so as not to trigger either the cost of expensive healthcare policies created by Government mandate – forced by the Government to choose between their employees and bankruptcy. And now, another bet that the Progressives are about to lose in crafting this looser of a nationalization of an industry – or are they?
A growing number of companies are looking to clamp down on rising health care costs by dumping coverage for their employees’ working spouses.
Others are requiring their workers to pay extra money to cover a spouse who could get health insurance elsewhere. And some may even consider making employees pay the full cost of insuring their children.
The moves are viewed as low-hanging fruit for companies that are expecting higher costs next year under the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare.
…Excela Health, the owner of three hospitals in Westmoreland County, told employees this month that it would no longer provide health coverage to spouses who are offered insurance from their own employer, starting Jan. 1.
“Many businesses are moving to employee-only coverage when a spouse’s employer also provides benefits,” Excela spokeswoman Robin Jennings said. More employers are taking a look at the strategy because Obamacare doesn’t specify that family health plans cover spouses, said James McTiernan, health care consultant with Triad Gallagher, a Downtown benefits firm.
Although the law requires plans to cover children, it allows companies to pass along the full cost of so-called dependent coverage to the employee, McTiernan said. “Some employers were in fact contemplating” whether to make workers pay for their children, he said. “It’s one way to mitigate the cost.”
…Nationally, a Mercer survey found that 18 percent of large employers had a working-spouse surcharge or a no-coverage policy for working spouses in 2012, up from 15 percent in 2011.
Democrats have never learned the lesson that when they change the rules of the game, people are going to adjust – and in many cases, in ways that were not ever contemplated (hmm, I’ve faced that in creating software too). And what we are seeing now is that this Democrat law is having some real unintended consequences – nice to see that Democrats have made the incentives in the Law so as to do the opposite of what was intended. If I was cynical, I would say that Democrats are anti-kids and anti-spouses – and therefore, anti-families. Else why would they have done this?
The Las Vegas Sun reports that Reid made the statement during a Friday appearance on the PBS program “Nevada Week in Review.” Reid said that Congress could eventually reform the Affordable Care Act into one providing universal health care without relying on the private health insurance industry.
“What we’ve done with Obamacare is have a step in the right direction, but we’re far from having something that’s going to work forever,” Reid said.
When show panelist Steve Sebelius asked if that meant eventually doing away with insurance-based coverage, Reid replied, “Yes, yes. Absolutely, yes.”
That would be single payer system – a complete nationalization of the healthcare market that the Government doesn’t already “own” (which is about 50% when you look at Medicaid and Medicare). Here is it from the horse’s mouth:
