Health plans hold steady, but Cadillac tax looms

According to the survey, employers project their health care benefits costs will increase 6.0% in 2016, the same increase employers would have experienced this year had they made no changes to their plan design. Shifting to those plans could allow businesses to avoid being hit by as much of the tax. In other words, employers are being discouraged from offering generous health plans.

The two Democrats have both signed on to legislation sponsored by Congressman Joe Courtney, D-Connecticut, that would repeal the so-called “Cadillac tax” included in the 2010 law that became known as Obamacare.

As financing options to pay for proposed changes, the authors recommend increasing cigarette and alcohol taxes, applying the Medicaid drug rebate to Medicare’s dual eligibles and increasing the Medicare payroll tax. Politico reports that some companies are evening negotiating with unions over benefits “that could spill into 2018”.

“The need to control rising health care benefits costs has never been greater”, said Brian Marcotte, President and CEO of the National Business Group on Health.

The National Center for Health Statistics also reported on Wednesday that more than 7 million people who didn’t have health insurance last year gained coverage this year.

Obamacare and the 50th Anniversary of Medicare and Medicaid]. Citing the Oliver Wyman analysis, the Daily Caller reports that Medicare Advantage would cost seniors $360 more this year and Medicaid managed-care enrollees will be expected to face increases of $152. But these arguments are shortsighted: The untaxed Cadillac plans can harm workers by driving up health care costs.

Those are fair criticisms, but they can be addressed without scrapping the tax.

However, one obstacle to repeal the tax is that abolishing it would cost an estimated $87 billion over 10 years. Expenses for specialty pharmaceuticals, which can cost up to $10,000 for a month of treatment, are on the radar.

Almost half of large U.S. employers have at least one health plan they offer to their workers that is considered a Cadillac plan that will “trigger” the special excise tax if the impacted companies don’t find a way to curb health costs, according to the National Business Group on Health, an association of 425 large U.S. employers including AT&T AT&T (T), Boeing Boeing (BA), CVS (CVS) and Wal-Mart (WMT).

“Collectively, the uninsured rate in states that have chosen to expand Medicaid and set up their own state exchanges or partnerships in the health insurance marketplace has declined significantly more since 2013 than the rate in states that did not take these steps”, Gallup’s Dan Witters wrote. He called the policy a “potentially costly and burdensome tax on Americans’ health care plans”.

Employers, however, are taking action to delay the impact of the excise tax.

To deal with health costs, companies are also charging workers to cover their spouses, trimming or restricting benefits, and adding wellness programs, according to the survey. The idea is to make employers pay less in insurance, hoping that employers will instead give more in wages, which the employees can then use to purchase what they want, including, if needed, medical care. “This is something that we are really trying to educate folks about”.

Langevin voted for the Cadillac tax when he backed the health law in 2010. There are questions about Obamacare’s ability to maintain affordable health care for some middle class people.