The Wall Street Journal reported today that families depending on “spousal coverage” from their employer could very well be among the first groups to fall victim to President Obama’s oft-repeated and broken promise that “if you like the coverage you have you can keep it.”
The newspaper reported that annual premium increases and costs associated with the law, including a $65 per person coverage fee set to take effect beginning in 2014, are driving, and will continue to drive up the cost of care and make it prohibitive to continue offering health coverage. A result of such cost pressures is that employers are being forced to discontinue the offering of spousal coverage in employer health plans.
“Such exclusions barely existed three years ago, but experts expect an increasing number of employers to adopt them: ‘That’s the next step,’ Darling [president of the National Business Group on Health.],” said in the report.
Estimates of the number of Americans who will eventually lose employer-sponsored coverage as a result of ObamaCare has spiked by millions in recent months – a result of a flood of costly and burdensome regulations released after the President’s reelection. Sadly, it is a reality that is underscored by employers who have long said that they’d be faced with difficult choices resulting from ObamaCare’s cost increases and mandates. A 2012 report released by the Ways and Means Committee revealed that 84 percent of Fortune 100 companies expect their future health care costs will increase faster than what they experienced over the last five years. The 71 Fortune 100 companies responding to a Ways and Means survey reported that they expect future health costs will grow an average of 7.6 percent annually over the next five years.
The ever increasing costs imposed by ObamaCare is a trend that will accelerate, not end. As experts in the article predicted, “more firms are likely to drop spouses altogether, whether they work or not – especially when the new federal health-care exchanges open in 2014, providing an alternative for spouses left out in the cold.”
Higher costs and the loss of your health coverage for you and our spouse – brought to you courtesy of ObamaCare.
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