Remember the White House’s insistence that, under Obamacare, you keep your insurance plan if you like it? We didn’t believe it then. Turns out we were right.
CNN reports that AT&T, Verizon, John Deere and others may well drop the health care coverage they now offer their employees. Obamacare makes it much cheaper for these companies to dump their workers into the government-controlled health exchanges and pay a penalty for NOT insuring them. From CNN:
Internal documents recently reviewed by Fortune, originally requested by Congress, show what the bill’s critics predicted, and what its champions dreaded: many large companies are examining a course that was heretofore unthinkable, dumping the health care coverage they provide to their workers in exchange for paying penalty fees to the government.
That would dismantle the employer-based system that has reigned since World War II. It would also seem to contradict President Obama’s statements that Americans who like their current plans could keep them.
Congress could have dramatically expanded health insurance without incentivizing employers to end their current health care coverage. To learn about far better alternatives (hint: auto enrollment in employer-based insurance and a universal tax credit system, for starters), go here.
