More workers at small businesses will get medical insurance thanks to healthcare reform

[TomCADem]

Source: LA Times

It’s been nearly six months since the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 was signed into law, and it’s still pretty unpopular. The Kaiser Health Tracking Poll for August found that 45% of Americans surveyed said they have a “somewhat unfavorable” or “very unfavorable” view of the law, compared with 43% who like it. A consensus of recent polls compiled by Pollster.com shows even more negativity – 48% of Americans oppose the law, compared with only 42% who favor it.

But those numbers might shift once the law goes into effect and the controversial health insurance exchanges are up and running.

An economist and two health policy researchers at the nonprofit Rand Corp. conducted a simulation to predict what is likely to happen once employers are able to offer coverage through these exchanges. Overall, they estimate that the proportion of U.S. workers who will have access to health insurance through their jobs will jump from 84.6% to 94.6%. That works out to 13.6 million additional workers having the option to buy affordable health plans.

Most of that bump is likely to come from smaller businesses with 50 or fewer employees. Today, only 60.4% of these employees can get health insurance through their jobs. Once the exchanges are functioning, the Rand researchers forecast that 85.9% of small business employees will have the option of buying health plans at work – an increase of 10.5 million workers.


Read more: http://www.latimes.com/health/boostershots/la-heb-health-insurance-20100901,0,562372.story

[babylonsister]

1. Excellent! Thanks for some good news! nt

[Lost4words]

10. oh for christ sake, heres a rotten apple, you would call it good food

[Beetwasher]

14. So You Have Nothing Of Value To Say And Just Attack A Poster Personally???

[Hekate]

13. Hi Babs. Kick and Rec.

:hi:

[customerserviceguy]

2. The big 'if' is how much it's going to cost

when the exchanges finally get around to operating. My guess is that it's not going to be anywhere near affordable.

[kath]

6. Yep - what the frikkin' congresscritters call "affordable" (and what RomneyCare calls "affordable")

is nothing near what real working people on THIS planet call "affordable".

Assholes.

[ejpoeta]

15. well if i made $100k i could afford insurance. unfortuately i don't make half that.

[DURHAM D]

3. Well first - who will still have a job?

[dencol]

4. That's why we need Medicare for all.

The Republicans hate it because concerns about healthcare access get people stuck in jobs they absolutely hate - which only encourages employers to mistreat employees.

[area51]

11. +1

Each day, 273 people die due to lack of health care in the U.S.; that's 100,000 deaths per year.

We need single-payer health care, not a welfare bailout for the serial-killer insurance agencies.

We don't need the GingrichCare of mandated, unregulated, for-profit insurance that is still too expensive, only pays parts of medical bills, denies claims, and bankrupts people. Republinazi '93 plan:

"Subtitle F: Universal Coverage - Requires each citizen or lawful permanent resident to be covered under a qualified health plan or equivalent health care program by January 1, 2005."

"We will never have real reform until people's health stops being treated as a financial opportunity for corporations."

[EFerrari]

8. Tying health care to employment was a pretty cynical move

in this economy.

[ejpoeta]

16. it made more sense when someone worked at the same place their whole working life.

it is not the reality anymore and should not be connected to employment. period. if we had medicare for all then everyone would be covered and the costs would be a lot lower for everyone.

[dflprincess]

17. It's not health care, it's insurance

There is still no guarantee that the copays, deductibles and other out of pockets won't be so high that people will be able to afford care.

[EFerrari]

19. Of course you're right. nt

[defendandprotect]

5. How much better it would have been to have had MEDICARE FOR ALL . . .

Oops! Corporates in the way -- !!

Let's see now . . . what should we do about that?

I know, put Baucus -- one of the two most heavily bribed members of Congress -- in charge

of health care deform!

Shame! Shame!!

[InkAddict]

7. The question is: Will the employees still be able to afford their rent

utilities,food, and transportation with what's left of that paycheck, even w/handicapped premium; if they still even have that job????????

[Snazzy]

9. Effective December 2014 right?

Maybe we can do some polling then.

[riderinthestorm]

12. Why would I do that? Why wouldn't a small biz owner just drop ALL their employees

and let them buy on the open market since they will all be "mandated" to purchase it anyway?

As a small biz owner, there's no incentive for a small biz owner to offer it - it's a pain in the ass to administer, it's costly, typically the coverage is shit and the employees know it (so they're not particularly grateful for it anyway if you are under-50-employee-small).

And anecdotally, insurance companies aren't writing these policies anyway anymore. I desperately tried to get a group plan for my small biz (12 employee farm) in May. I was turned down by every single company operating in my area - they simply aren't writing policies anymore for businesses with less than 200 people. That may have been because HCR was still so up in the air and nobody knew what was coming but my agent told me its at least a factor that big insurance companies saw the hand-writing on the wall. It's more lucrative for the big companies to get their hands on individual policies for bigger bucks, than to issue group plans that can contain high risk, PEC folks within the pool. I was highly motivated because we needed coverage for my husband (also an employee at the farm of course) so nobody fought harder to try to get it.

[HuckleB]

18. K and R.