I was just wondering what changes anyone has noticed in their plans in terms of coverage, deductibles, premiums, etc. It's been a few months since HRC was enacted and eventhough many of the changes have no actually been implemented, insurers, providers, employers and others are starting to comprehend some of the actual and anticipated changes and are beginning to make adjustments, including the actions referred to in the article concerning the employee/employer relationship.

My take is that the unintended consequences set forth in this article seem to be another reason to disassociate health insurance from employment.

Did Congress really not consider how employers and others might respond or did they anticipate this?

If this Kaiser survey is accurate, doesn't it mean that an individual healthcare insurance costs are still rising eventhough one of the primary purposes of HCR was to lower the cost to individuals so more people could afford health insurance?

Bosses Put Higher Insurance Tab On Workers' Shoulders
September 2, 2010

by Julie Rovner
Employers' health insurance premiums haven't actually gone up very much for 2010. But you wouldn't know that if you're an employee.
That's because, for the first time since it started keeping track a decade ago, this year's survey of employers by the Kaiser Family Foundation and Health Research and Educational Trust found those employers passing along virtually all of the increase in the cost of health coverage to their workers.
The result? "Worker contributions to premiums went up 14 percent this year and the employer share did not go up at all," Kaiser President and CEO Drew Altman tells Shots.
How much money is riding? The average premium went up $482 for workers with family policy.
Over time the news for workers has been bad and getting worse for a while. "The employee's share of premiums is up 159 percent in the last 10 years, while wages are up 42 percent," Altman says.
The latest — and almost complete — transfer of higher health insurance costs to employees is significant, he says. "It just speaks to the pressure that companies are under, especially small companies, from the recession," he says. "And it also speaks to how badly people need to hold onto their jobs in the recession — that they will absorb those benefit cuts because they need those jobs."
But Altman says the upward creep of all sorts of health costs for employees, including deductibles and copayments, raises a more ominous question about affordability of health care for the majority of Americans who still get their insurance on the job.
"While we were all focused on expanding coverage in the health reform debate, I think what we missed is that while that debate was going on, what we call health insurance in the country has actually been changing an awful lot," he said. "So what most people get as health insurance today just doesn't look very much like the more comprehensive health insurance their parents got."
And because the politics of the health overhaul debate "were don't touch employer insurance very much," he says, the result is "the basic trend for the 160, 170 million people with employer-based insurance is that insurance is going to slowly change, and people will be in plans with greater cost-sharing and higher deductibles."

http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2010...3/?ft=1&f=1001

Our open enrollment doesn't begin until next month, but the boss has warned that costs are probably going up.

One of my biggest clients has been in business for 20 years and says this year will be the first time that she will not be able to provide insurance for her employees and their families at no cost

Going up at next fiscal year, 100% for sure.

Funny that you started this thread today. Below is the exact wordage of the letter I got today from Emblem Health about the Group Coverage for my employees:

Since the New York State Insurance Department has the authority to review and approve in advance health plan premium rate increases, we are writing to let you know that we are appliying to NYSID for the following monthly percent rate increases for your EPO plan under group number xxxxxxx for your policy anniversary date of June 1, 2011:

Individual Coverage- 16-21% increase
Employee and Spouse- 27-32% increase
Employee and Child(ren)- 13-18% increase
Family (Employee, Spouse, and Children)- 18-23% increase

The total estimated percent increase includes three components. The first is a basic increase for your type of plan. The second is an increase resulting from the cost of benefit enhancements required by the new federal Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA). The third is for an increase resulting from the elimination of the New York State subsidy for small group mental health benefits (also known as Timothy's Law). These rate adjustments are all subject to NYSID approval.

Hope and Change FTL!!

Increased $400.00 a month for me and my wife.... $1400.00 smackers... made me really upset.

Willy,

I hope you weren't expecting too many OT Libs ITT.

In before someone calls it a Conservative circle jerk.

I am the employer. Sorry if that was unclear.

My partner and I are meeting next week to decide how to handle this. It's not gonna be pretty for the people that work for us though.

Health Insurance? Sounds like a scam.

 

Originally Posted by jetsjets1028

I am the employer. Sorry if that was unclear.

My partner and I are meeting next week to decide how to handle this. It's not gonna be pretty for the people that work for us though.

Yea that's the thing makes for tough decision affecting people you care about and have responsibility for.

well if I recall the reason we in such a hurry was to SAVE the economy. Wasn't this going to help derail costs and save jobs?

My premiums are going to stay the same but my deductible quadrupled. I've already ordered my told ya so t-shirt.

 

Originally Posted by ginwilly

My premiums are going to stay the same but my deductible quadrupled. I've already ordered my told ya so t-shirt.

LOLOLOL....My partner is suggesting that we go this exact route. I guess I am one of millions that Obama has delegated as qualified to decide whether Americans get to pay more for the same or get less for the same money.

We had to switch plans. Now we get much less service for much more money. Really sucks.

Here is a list of the services a company would have to cover at 100% if they lose grandfathered status

http://www.healthcare.gov/law/about/...ces/lists.html

to be fair rates were probably going up anyway without the bill. Not at these rates, but the system is fucked. We had a great opportunity to open up competition for the drug companies which cause a lot of the costs and instead we reinforced their power behind closed door meetings.

You will see a lot of Dems promising to "amend" the bill if elected, most of them know how bad the bill was but it's the loud idiots like Pelosi and Obama that the sheep believed and still believe.

We will never hear liberals say "you know, you guys were right, let's scrap the bad plan and work on a better one". We'll hear moderate dems admit this, but the far left does not have "we were wrong" in their vocabulary.

We needed health insurance reform. Not many were arguing against some form of health insurance reform. The problem is the reform needed is government reform within the system. So your right to be fair something needed to get done unfortunately what ended up getting done is one of the worst pieces of legislation we have seen in decades. The problem is that one of the biggest reasons (not the only) health insurance costs so much is government regulation and government subsidizing Medicare/Medicaid/other government health insurance plans. The chance that is going to get fixed by the very people who created the problem? Not likely