Health care reform is simply awesome. No, I can't sign up yet, but as of late last week, I could go window shopping. And here is what I found:
I am employed and receive health insurance from my employer. My employer has about 100 employees. Because of very bad health experience/history and a small group, our premiums are very high. While my employer pays 100% of the premium to insure me, it only pays a portion of the coverage for my husband and daughter. I therefore pay $840 per month just to get them coverage. I don't know the employer's share of the premium for them or for me, but I do know it can't be cheap. I am guessing that it is about $1,500 to $2,000 per month.
So I window shopped on the exchange. For a gold plan to cover just my husband and daughter, I would have to pay about $450 to $500. For a gold plan to cover me, my husband and daughter, I would have to pay about $900.
Jaw drops. My mind is still reeling at the notion of how much cheaper it is to provide coverage if more people are in the pool. I mean, I knew this on a theoretical level, but to see it in action is amazing.
So it would be much cheaper for society (and the employees and the employer) if my employer simply abandoned its plan, and used the same dollars it pays now to reimburse employees to go on the exchange. The coverage is better and cheaper. But, as far as I have been able to determine, the ACA will not permit this. Employers like mine can participate in a private exchange, but not the new public exchange. We are still perusing the fine print to see if we can find an exception, but so far, no dice.
Methinks they have vastly underestimated the monster that is about to be unleashed. It will only be a matter of time before employers wake up and realize what could be. What.Could.Be. Namely, a lot of people are about to realize the power of moving to a universal pool, whether that is accomplished through single-payor or some other mechanism. The savings are simply too dramatic to ignore, and are there for everyone to see.
Thus, I think it is only a matter of time before the complicated law that is the ACA is simplified and dramatically expanded as people realize What.Could.Be.