ObamaCare Increases Cost-Sharing Too
One of the most common liberal complaints about Paul Ryan's proposed Medicare reform—and Medicare voucher plans in general—is that it wouldn't actually decrease the cost of health care. Instead, voucherizing the program would simply force seniors to share a greater portion of the health care cost. In other words, it would increase an individual's portion of the cost-sharing arrangement.
What these criticisms tend to leave out is that ObamaCare is almost certain to increase cost-sharing too. According to a new survey of employers by PricewaterhouseCoopers, 84 percent of employers expect to make changes in order to help offset the additional cost burden imposed by the new health care law. In practice, as John Goodman of the National Center for Policy Analysis notes in a summary of the survey, in practice, "make changes" means "raise premiums, deductibles, and co-payments." Still others will likely lose their current employer coverage entirely: As Goodman writes, "almost half (45%) of companies 'indicated they were likely to change subsidies for employee medical coverage' as a result of the law—quite possibly dumping their employees on to government-run exchanges."
It's not rocket science: When costs go up, some or all of those additional costs will be shifted to employees. ObamaCare makes it more expensive for many businesses to keep existing health benefits, so employees will end up paying a greater share.
It's happened before, too. In Massachusetts, RomneyCare was explicitly sold as a way of controlling costs. It didn't. And so, as insurance premiums continued to climb, employers reported in 2009 that they expected to shift a greater share of the cost burden to employees. Given that ObamaCare was modeled on RomneyCare, we can all look forward to the same thing nationally.
Editor's Note: As of February 29, 2024, commenting privileges on reason.com posts are limited to Reason Plus subscribers. Past commenters are grandfathered in for a temporary period. Subscribe here to preserve your ability to comment. Your Reason Plus subscription also gives you an ad-free version of reason.com, along with full access to the digital edition and archives of Reason magazine. We request that comments be civil and on-topic. We do not moderate or assume any responsibility for comments, which are owned by the readers who post them. Comments do not represent the views of reason.com or Reason Foundation. We reserve the right to delete any comment and ban commenters for any reason at any time. Comments may only be edited within 5 minutes of posting. Report abuses.
Please
to post comments
The number of people over 65 is increasing and the annual costs per person is also increasing. Of course retirees are going to be paying more, under any financially realistic system at all. I remain unconvinced that the Ryan plan will result in more of the poor elderly getting reasonable access to at least basic care.
A.) Fuck old people. So let's get that out of the way.
I've been coming around to the fact that subsidies like vouchers breach the separation of business and state. Massive government backing of the housing and higher education industries led to runaway prices. I have no doubt that the same will happen to healthcare industry. We can't have entire industries depend on government income transfers to survive. That goes for GM/Chrysler, banks, AIG, agricultural, sports, defense etc. Vouchers will end up creating an entire monstrous industry of uncompetitive private in-name-only entities that exist solely on lobbying for taxpayer dollars.
Fuck old people
I just saw your commercial. Didn't grandma ever bake you cookies?
Pay my own way!!???!!!?? What has happened to this country?
So, if insurance from your employer is part of your compensation, isn't this sort of cost-shift basically a double-pay-cut?
A feature, not a bug, from the perspective of the single-payer crowd. Foreseeable consequences are not unintended.
Alt-Alt-Text
"Yes, I am trying to reform Medicare. My balls are this big."
It's not rocket science: When costs go up, some or all of those additional costs will be shifted to employees. ObamaCare makes it more expensive for many businesses to keep existing health benefits, so employees will end up paying a greater share.
So you mean people will know the actual cost of health care? What a tragedy!!!
What's the goal of this health care plan again? Shit is about a vague as the Wars in Iraq and Libya.