Why are employers making changes to their health plans every year? Because costs have been shooting up faster than inflation and profits. Democrats promised that would change, but a month after passage of Obamacare, a report issued by the president's chief actuary at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said that overall health-care costs would actually go up under the new program. So much for the Democrats' promise.
That report came after several major companies, including Caterpillar and Verizon, informed their shareholders that they were anticipating billions of dollars in additional health-care costs as a result of Obamacare. Last month, in a Towers Watson survey of 661 companies, 94 percent expected Obamacare to increase their costs. Eighty-eight percent intended to pass on these higher costs to their employees, while 74 percent planned to reduce workers' health-care benefits.
It seems that significant changes in Americans' health-care plans are on the way. And they're not changes for the better.
Last week, however, both Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and the president reiterated their promise that employees would be able to keep their current plans. The audacity of rhetoric!
Their dogged insistence on perpetrating this patent falsehood is even more stunning given an Obama administration report leaked last week. The joint study by three departments predicts that 40 to 69 percent of private employers, and up to 80 percent of those that are small businesses, will be forced to drop or change their - your - health plans. That's change you truly can believe in, sad to say.
