“One thing crossed my mind this morning. These folks being impacted now are ones with individual policies, i.e. those that don’t have policies through employers. This issue has come to light due to the “Individual Mandate” in place for this year. Are we going to see something similar, but on steroids next year when the “Employer Mandate” is enforced and all of those policies are required to meet O’s minimum standards?..”
You better believe it and I’m just waiting until next year to see what my company does. Keep our insurer as-is but with increased deductions for each employee’s plan or simply drop the insurance and give each employee a cash payout to go purchase on their own. I’d personally prefer that latter-pocket it and pay the fine at the end of the year.
I don’t know if it will be economically viable to work in a year’s time if the prices jump a whole lot.
This could be the silver lining in all this.
If employers start giving employees the cash to buy for themselves we may finally be heading toward what has always been the answer to the health crisis all along...consumer driven health care.