[h/t Sam Smith's Undernews]
http://money.cnn.com/2010/05/05/news/companies/dropping_benefits.fortune/
May 6, 2010: 11:52 AM ET Fortune Magazine
Documents reveal AT&T, Verizon, others, thought about dropping employer-sponsored benefits
By Shawn Tully, senior editor at large
(Fortune) -- The great mystery surrounding the historic health care
bill is how the corporations that provide coverage for most Americans
-- coverage they know and prize -- will react to the new law's
radically different regime of subsidies, penalties, and taxes. Now,
we're getting a remarkable inside look at the options AT&T, Deere, and
other big companies are weighing to deal with the new legislation.
Internal documents recently reviewed by Fortune, originally requested
by Congress, show what the bill's critics predicted, and what its
champions dreaded: many large companies are examining a course that was
heretofore unthinkable, dumping the health care coverage they provide
to their workers in exchange for paying penalty fees to the government.
That would dismantle the employer-based system that has reigned since
World War II. It would also seem to contradict President Obama's
statements that Americans who like their current plans could keep them.
And as we'll see, it would hugely magnify the projected costs for the
bill, which controls deficits only by assuming that America's employers
would remain the backbone of the nation's health care system.
<end excerpt>
The rest of the article is very interesting if you're a health care geek:
http://money.cnn.com/2010/05/05/news/companies/dropping_benefits.fortune/
Where they got the documents from is funny. It's only four companies -- but that's 100% of the ones they subpoened. And the math makes it look like a good deal not only for the vast majority of companies but also for their employees for the companies to dump them.
Which is kind of interesting to think about. If most companies took this route, it would overload the government finances and make more people directly dependent on government subsidies and regulation for their health care at the same time as it dismantled the employer run health care system.
Michael