Employers Agree: Health “Reform” = Higher Premiums
The consulting firm Mercer is out with a new survey of employers on the impact of the new health care law – and the employers are near-unanimous in their belief that health “reform” will raise employees’ premiums. Only 3 percent of employers responded that the legislative changes would NOT cause premiums to rise. One quarter of respondents believed that the bill would raise premiums by at least 3%, over and above this year’s normal rise in costs due to medical inflation. The widespread agreement that the bill will raise costs is far from the change President Obama promised on the campaign trail, when he promised that his health care plan would reduce premiums by $2,500 for the average family “by the end of my first term as President.”
The survey also examined business’ fears about the law’s new employer mandate penalties. More than one in four employers (26%), and nearly two in five retailers (39%), may not be in compliance with provisions requiring coverage of all employees working over 30 hours per week. Of those, a majority (54%) said they would consider changing their business practices “so that fewer employees work 30 hours or more per week.”
Based on these developments, one can easily ask: How do higher premiums and fewer hours worked represent “reform?”