Top Companies Consider Dropping Employee Health Insurance Coverage

CaféAuLait

This Space for Rent
Oct 29, 2008
7,777
1,971
245
Pacific Northwest
Documents Reveal AT&T, Verizon, Others, Thought About Dropping Employer-sponsored Benefits



EXCERPT:

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. And as we'll see, it would hugely magnify the projected costs for the bill, which controls deficits only by assuming that America's employers would remain the backbone of the nation's health care system.

AT&T, Verizon, others, thought about dropping health plans - May. 5, 2010

Why the write-downs happened but the hearings didn't

The request yielded 1,100 pages of documents from four major employers: AT&T, Verizon, Caterpillar and Deere (DE, Fortune 500). No sooner did the Democrats on the Energy Committee read them than they abruptly cancelled the hearings. On April 14, the Committee's majority staff issued a memo stating that the write downs were "proper and in accordance with SEC rules." The committee also stated that the memos took a generally sunny view of the new legislation. The documents, said the Democrats' memo, show that "the overall impact of health reform on large employers could be beneficial."


AT&T, Verizon, others, thought about dropping health plans - May. 5, 2010
 
This is why Henry Waxman cancelled the GAAP Accounting Inquisition - the Dems don't want it made public that large companies have figured out that they will save money by canceling the current health care insurance (which Obama PROMISED) we could all keep, in favor of dumping employees onto the state exchanges and paying the fines.

All big companies are going to figure this out - and then we'll only have the Public Option choice.

Just like Obama, Pelosi, and Reid planned all along.
 
This is why Henry Waxman cancelled the GAAP Accounting Inquisition - the Dems don't want it made public that large companies have figured out that they will save money by canceling the current health care insurance (which Obama PROMISED) we could all keep, in favor of dumping employees onto the state exchanges and paying the fines.

All big companies are going to figure this out - and then we'll only have the Public Option choice.

Just like Obama, Pelosi, and Reid planned all along.

Exactly why Waxman called off the hearings. I was a bit surpirsed that CNN touched upon that in the article.
 
It's perfect, the Republican President in 2012 with a Congressional Super Majority can introduce a plan using the Whole Foods suggestions as a base
 
Whole Foods has an excellent program - it makes so much sense and the employees love it.
 
I don't think employers should be required to provide health insurance in the first place. Make everyone purchase their own individually. Then people would begin to understand the true costs of health insurance, and we might actually begin to see some positive changes to the system.
 

Forum List

Back
Top