The Employer Mandate: A Necessary Impossibility

[Liz]

Great article by writer Megan McArdle on the employer mandate.

"As long as employers are allowed to set their own eligibility rules, verification will be time-consuming and difficult to automate–not impossible, technically, but difficult and intrusive and expensive, which means that it might be impossible, politically and financially."

The Employer Mandate: A Necessary Impossibility « Megan McArdle

 

[AllenChicago]

2-10-2014

Penalty dollars collected from employers for not having health insurance for their employees was supposed to be a source of revenue for subsidizing individual health insurance plan premiums for Americans that earn under 400% of FPL. With each additional delay of the "Employer Mandate", (or some part of the mandate), less $$$ will flow into that Subsidy Pool.

If you want Single-Payer/Government Owned/Medicare-4-All health insurance in this country, start choking off revenue streams of the Affordable Care Act, and sabotage everything else, using confusion, incompetence, and sky-high premiums. If getting to single-payer doesn't seem to be happening fast enough, build in more delays and more incompetence. (i.e. Accenture to fix hc.gov)

Regarding the Cost of the Employer Mandate Delay:
"What exactly will the costs of the delay be? The CBO modeled the one-year delay of the individual mandate that the Obama administration announced in July 2013, and found that it will increase the deficit by $12 billion over the next ten years (almost entirely because no employers will have to pay the law’s substantial penalties, and reduce the number of Americans with health insurance (almost entirely among those who get it from their employers) by 1 million.
That finding reflects the main effect of the employer mandate: It’s a revenue-raising measure that falls on employers that don’t offer health coverage (and their employees), rather than a useful way to ensure more Americans get health-care coverage. It’s a not-insubstantial source of funding: It was scheduled, before any of these delays, to raise $140 billion between 2014 and 2023, about 7 to 8 percent of the costs of the ACA’s insurance expansion over that time."

Source: Another Employer-Mandate Delay: Political Protection, Charged to the Deficit | National Review Online
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[xrac]

2-10-2014 Penalty dollars collected from employers for not having health insurance for their employees was supposed to be a source of revenue for subsidizing individual health insurance plan premiums for Americans that earn under 400% of FPL. With each additional delay of the "Employer Mandate", (or some part of the mandate), less $$$ will flow into that Subsidy Pool. If you want Single-Payer/Government Owned/Medicare-4-All health insurance in this country, start choking off revenue streams of the Affordable Care Act, and sabotage everything else, using confusion, incompetence, and sky-high premiums. If getting to single-payer doesn't seem to be happening fast enough, build in more delays and more incompetence. (i.e. Accenture to fix hc.gov) Regarding the Cost of the Employer Mandate Delay: "What exactly will the costs of the delay be? The CBO modeled the one-year delay of the individual mandate that the Obama administration announced in July 2013, and found that it will increase the deficit by $12 billion over the next ten years (almost entirely because no employers will have to pay the law’s substantial penalties, and reduce the number of Americans with health insurance (almost entirely among those who get it from their employers) by 1 million. That finding reflects the main effect of the employer mandate: It’s a revenue-raising measure that falls on employers that don’t offer health coverage (and their employees), rather than a useful way to ensure more Americans get health-care coverage. It’s a not-insubstantial source of funding: It was scheduled, before any of these delays, to raise $140 billion between 2014 and 2023, about 7 to 8 percent of the costs of the ACA’s insurance expansion over that time." Source: Another Employer-Mandate Delay: Political Protection, Charged to the Deficit | National Review Online ac

So the end result will be that Obama and a few democrats will give us single payer whether it is wanted or not. Every health gents needs to start looking for either a job or new markets.

 

[AllenChicago]

September 1, 2015

Contrary to what many experts thought when this thread was started, the small-medium employer mandate survived, and will be implemented just 5 short months from now. It will be affecting far more than traditional businesses.

Take Illinois State University.. ISU has been a huge Barack Obama supporter. It was one of the places he liked to visit, before becoming President.

Fast forward to 2015: Illinois State University is now preparing for the financial beating that ObamaCare will start delivering on Jan 1, 2016.

Brief Story: New Health Care Rule Could Be Costly To University Of Illinois | WUIS 91.9

As an agent, I find it interesting that ISU had such a hard time finding a broker to get them group coverage. Are educational institutions a pain in the arse to work with?

 

[sman]

September 1, 2015

Contrary to what many experts thought when this thread was started, the small-medium employer mandate survived, and will be implemented just 5 short months from now. It will be affecting far more than traditional businesses.

Take Illinois State University.. ISU has been a huge Barack Obama supporter. It was one of the places he liked to visit, before becoming President.

Fast forward to 2015: Illinois State University is now preparing for the financial beating that ObamaCare will start delivering on Jan 1, 2016.

Brief Story: New Health Care Rule Could Be Costly To University Of Illinois | WUIS 91.9

As an agent, I find it interesting that ISU had such a hard time finding a broker to get them group coverage. Are educational institutions a pain in the arse to work with?

I can't speak to the difficulties of working with educational institutions, but here's my prediction. These colleges will just increase the student fees and tuition and won't feel much of an impact. If you haven't seen student fees in a while, here's a list of what is required of a full-time student (or his/her parents):

Activity fee - $92
Athletic fee - $277
Health fee - $40
International fee - $19
Library fee - $5
Rec fee - $53
Student Center fee - $36
Transportation fee - $50 (they don't provide any transportation)
Technology fee - $85
Sustain fee - $3 (I have no idea what that is)
USG Inst fee - $404

The total is $1,064 per semester and is required for students taking 6 hours or more. A student taking only one 3 hour class would have to pay $532.03 in fees. Kennesaw State's fees are $1,003 per semester (these happen to be the schools my children attended so I'm familiar with having to pay these absurd fees).

My prediction, is if Georgia State or Kennesaw State were to experience an increase in costs for health insurance, there would be an increase in the above fees or even a new one added. Universities will not eat these costs. They will pass them on to the students (or the parents of the students if that is who is paying).

Bravo Obama and the Democrats! You've made the cost of education even higher.

 

[AllenChicago]

I can't speak to the difficulties of working with educational institutions, but here's my prediction. These colleges will just increase the student fees and tuition and won't feel much of an impact.

Bravo Obama and the Democrats! You've made the cost of education even higher.

Bernie Sanders want to make public colleges Tuition-Free for students.
Bernie Sanders: 'I Will Fight to...Make Every Public College and University in America Tuition Free

 

[sman]

Bernie Sanders want to make public colleges Tuition-Free for students. Bernie Sanders: 'I Will Fight to...Make Every Public College and University in America Tuition Free

I can't wait until Sanders reveals how to pay for that. Oh wait, he wants a top tax rate of 90%.

And when a college education is "free" just how much value will those degrees have? If that were to happen, an undergraduate degree becomes as valuable as a high school degree is today.

 

[Yagents]

Maybe he's talking about a single educator system, with online classes and tests only. That's how you make my degree a commodity.

 

[sman]

Maybe he's talking about a single educator system, with online classes and tests only. That's how you make my degree a commodity.

Cradle to grave, baby! Because we are incapable of doing for ourselves. And the likes of Bernie Sanders have been gifted with such talents that they know what's best for each of us.

 

[scagnt83]

And when a college education is "free" just how much value will those degrees have? If that were to happen, an undergraduate degree becomes as valuable as a high school degree is today.

If the curriculum is not dumbed down like it has been for the past 15 years then it would hold plenty of value. It is plenty easy to get a student loan... not so easy to pay it off. I doubt the number of college degrees would increase all that much. You still have to put in the time/effort/brain power.

College has been dumbed down so much that non technical degrees are mostly useless already. What skills does a business graduate have that enables them to walk into a job and be of actual use without some serious training on the employers part? Dont even get me started on a liberal arts degree... they might as well skip college and go straight into sales! Lol.

I am a big fan of making 2 year degrees free... and at the same time making the content more rigorous and job focused. If they want a 4 year degree then Sallie can step in and help. At least at that point they should have some direction, academic history, and a solid career path.