Posted on 05/01/2014 3:04:32 PM PDT by Oldeconomybuyer
A new investor report predicts that Standard & Poor's 500 companies could shift 90 percent of their workforce from job-based health coverage to individual insurance sold on the nation's marketplaces by 2020.
If all U.S. companies with 50 or more employees followed suit, they could collectively save $3.25 trillion through 2025, according to the report by S&P Capital IQ, a division of McGraw Hill Financial.
Standard & Poor's 500 companies could save $689 billion over the same period if they did likewise, the report found. Savings for S&P 500 companies could top $800 billion if health care inflation remains at the traditional 7.5 percent rate over the next decade, the report estimates.
(Excerpt) Read more at mcclatchydc.com ...
Yep.
Duh, this was the plan all along.
Companies that keep their own health insurance will have the pick of the best employees.
I’d been living in constant pain. When I was notified I’d be laid off I used my insurance for two extensive foot operations. The doctor was amazing and did a fantastic job. He resectioned bone, reshaped my feet, cleaned out joints...so how much did I pay for this? Out of pocket roughly $100. I’m not complaining, but it’s ridiculous. If you take your car to the dealer you’ll pay $75-95/hour plus parts. I paid the cost of a decent dinner for three in a moderately nice restaurant. I would not at all have minded paying, say, $10,000. But to have these operations without insurance would have cost me much, much more than that.
Funny, the doctor gave me options on where I could have it done and one of them was the hospital. I asked him what the price differences were and he asked, “Why do you care? You’re completely covered.” It turns out the hospital was many times more expensive so I chose the other option.
The fact that the cost is disassociated from the user is bound to run up the price.
For decades I felt business should get out of the insurance business. Give employees a hit of money and let them purchase their own insurance. It would actually unleash the free market to provide innovative products. And free business from the burden of providing health care.
They would be stupid not to. It is far cheaper to pay the penalties than the cost of health care for their employees. Business has always wanted to decouple health care from employment.
Why give them money when they can get a government subsidy? And it is much more expensive buying insurance as an individual than it is for a corporation can that can do it en masse.
Absolutely...This was like a big thing for unions to give folks these benefits years ago. They were all planning on Free Health Care for Life....and they’re all getting screwed.
These are artifical savings because of tax law and constraints on the market. If we unleash the free market and introduce competition costs will decline.
The free market always drives costs down and provides better value.
Your going to PO people who own businesses with your crazy freedom talk.
Decades ago, the CEO of what is now one of the country's largest banks asked me why he should be in the health care business. My head of HR laughed him off. But we need to create a really new system based on free market principles.
Why wouldn’t they? BO is making it increasing more expensive to provide this benefit and doesn’t want the competition from the government program. Which is why those proposing to “fix it” are fools or worse.
Maybe not. A company that provides health insurance but requires substantial employee contributions to the premiums may not be able to keep these “best employees” if they are young, healthy and not interested in subsidizing their older co-workers.
If they are working for a corporation, they probably make too much money to qualify for a subsidy.
LOL. Yeah big corporations pay big money.
They don’t pay slave wages. I worked for a large corporation and was able to retire early and comfortably.
Most companies can’t afford horrible healthcare for their workers... or their children or wives. Too distracting.
You know Obamacare is going to be as bad as the VA at their worst - and as comforting as Medicaid... it’ll be a horror. What kind of company (other than lowlife stuff) would want that?
After adjusting for inflation, men who work full-time in America today make less money than men who worked full-time in America 40 years ago.
It is hard to believe, but 62 percent of all Americans make $20 or less an hour at this point.
Nine of the top ten occupations in the U.S. pay an average wage of less than $35,000 a year.
According to one recent study, 40 percent of all Americans could not come up with $2000 right now even if there was a major emergency
Less than one out of every four Americans has enough money put away to cover six months of expenses if there was a job loss or major emergency.
An astounding 56 percent of all Americans have subprime credit in 2014
If a worker doesn't like the health care he/she has for themselves or their families, then that should be the worker's problem ... just like it's the worker's problem if they don't like the neighborhood where they live, the worker's problem if they don't like the car they drive, etc.
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