Your employer could be considering a health plan with no hospital benefits

[LiberalElite]

Source: PBS.org

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/employer-considering-health-plan-hospital-benefits/

-snip-
Lance Shnider is confident Obamacare regulators knew exactly what they were doing when they created an online calculator that gives a green light to new employer coverage without hospital benefits.

“There’s not a glitch in this system,” said Shnider, president of Voluntary Benefits Agency, an Ohio firm working with some 100 employers to implement such plans. “This is the way the calculator was designed.”

Timothy Jost is pretty sure the whole thing was a mistake.

“There’s got to be a problem with the calculator,” said Jost, a law professor at Washington and Lee University and health-benefits authority. Letting employers avoid health-law penalties by offering plans without hospital benefits “is certainly not what Congress intended,” he said.
-snip-

Read more: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/employer-considering-health-plan-hospital-benefits/

[RufusTFirefly]

1. Who woulda thunk it?

How could a warmed-over Republican plan from the Nixon era first implemented by the King of the Plutocrats Mitt Romney possibly go wrong?

[Skittles]

18. you have to wonder about how naive people really are

seriously, they will buy anything

[TorchTheWitch]

21. oh we were repeatedly told that MA residents just loved RomneyCare

Some of us tried to warn that this was ACA bullshit was a give-away to not only insurance companies but all businesses and the people would be screwed. Yet over and over we were told that it "wasn't perfect but a step toward single-payer". Not that this is entirely wrong but that "single-payer" is going to be us.

That's what this whole piece of epic shit ACA was from the first - mandatory health insurance paid for by the people with employers allowed to dump health care benefits yet not give any compensation for people to purchase health care.

[Autumn]

2. WTF. Health plans with no hospital coverage.

Sounds like junk plans.

[LiberalElite]

3. Even so, the article claims taht

plans like these are a "step up" for some people. So, I guess they should all be grateful.

[TransitJohn]

7. And you must buy or pay a tax penalty.

Fascist wet dream.

[suffragette]

25. I guess these would end up being 'pot metal' plans given the metal tiring structure

That's something that's bothered me from the beginning of this, the tiering of plans and types of care available.
That and the characterization of decent full benefit plans, especially those that unions fought for and gave concessions in terms of wage increases, as 'Cadillac plans.' That always struck me as Reaganesque terminology.

It seems like a Comcast method of structuring, pretty much doing to health care what Zcomcast wants to do to the Internet.
And it lends itself to doing what is described in the OP, of adding lower and higher structure plans based on cost that exclude or include more features.

That creates castes of the insured. Those who can afford the least insurance end up effectively excluded from receiving actual health care.
And the insurance companies continue raking in the profits.

[Autumn]

27. That's always bothered me too.

[Brigid]

4. And who around here actually believes . . .

This this isn't exactly what Congress intended?

[yeoman6987]

5. This needs to not leave DU until after the election

The last thing we need is Republicans making commercial with "congress did not intend for this".

[Autumn]

8. This is out of DU. It was on NPR and posted here.

[TransitJohn]

6. LOL, who saw this coming?

It's completely out of the blue!

[dflprincess]

9. So America will continue to be the only western nation

where people declare bankruptcy because of medical bills and, worse, die before they should because they don't have access to care.

Why am I not surprised?

[BrotherIvan]

10. That's just fucking evil

[area51]

11. With GingrichCare and no public option

raise your hand if you didn't see this coming.

[TBF]

12. The last several months there have been tons of urgent cares

going up in my part of Texas (suburbs south of Houston). This is a fairly affluent area that still has jobs for people. The timing connected with Obamacare and my thought was that more people were getting coverage so this would alleviate the waits in hospital ERs. Which makes sense - not every little thing needs to be done in a hospital.

But I didn't take it to the next step and realize the hospitals were going to the for the 1% and everyone else gets the neighborhood centers - although that certainly doesn't surprise me now that I think about it.

[drm604]

13. Hospitals couldn't survive on 1% of their current business.

I really don't think that hospitals want to eliminate the bulk of their business. The problem is insurance companies. They would love to not have to pay for hospital stays.

[TBF]

14. Agree with that assessment -

with the caveat that I didn't say the hospitals were advocating for this.

This is all part of the "we can't afford the baby boom generation" with assorted arguments.

It's all bunk of course - we find plenty of money for our war-mongering in other countries. The question is whether we intend to keep our promises on social security and medicare. The republicans would like nothing more than to end both programs.

[TexasMommaWithAHat]

15. These are not good for hospitals

unless the urgent health care center is an actual affiliate of the hospital.

Insured users tend to use these urgent care centers for minor issues, which increases the percentage of uninsured using the hospital emergency rooms. Hospitals can't turn away patients, while these stand alone care centers can and do. There aren't enough 1%ers to make up for this.

[Sgent]

20. TX is a little different

because of their licensing laws.

In many cases, the urgent care's are more profitable because, unlike hospital ER's, they don't have to take self-pay / no insurance patients.

[TBF]

23. But why the timing - just as ACA was passed these started

going up everywhere?

[cheapdate]

16. My employer is not considering anything like that.

Although, at the last company-wide meeting to talk about benefits, we learned that the company is considering going to the exchanges (our plan is grandfathered at the moment). In our state, there is a lot of competition in the exchange market and there are better, cheaper plans available than what we've been buying for years.

I'm fortunate to work for a company that values it's employees.

[Ruby the Liberal]

17. Medicare Part E

E = Everyone

This shit needs to stop. No matter how thorough they try to be, someone will find the loophole to save $0.50

[blkmusclmachine]

19. Once the plutocrats/1% strip all the meat from the ACA bones, all that'll be left is the TAX

And I wonder if that was the plan from the very beginning...

[Sunlei]

22. 100employers who didn't offer any insurance before to their low paid workers, try to avoid the fine.

a hefty fine of about 3k per employee. Wonder who those 100 employers are?

On the front end, the no hospital plan cost the employee only about $25 a month and cover Doctors visits, prescriptions, shots, routine in office care. little or no out of pocket costs. Paid emergency room visits, have a low cut off cost of about $250 to the employee.

Those employers will get lots of Federal funds per employee to help pay for the insurance. The employers need to offer plans that cover hospital care. Those plans will cost their employees about $70 a month and some out of pocket costs. Congress needs to raise the minimum wage!

It was the Insurance Corps themselves who were paid millions to set-up the insurance plans when ACA was in alpha and beta stage. I wish we could do away with the 'for profit' middlemen and allow all Americans to pay premiums to Medicare.

[Sancho]

24. Support collective bargaining and join a union!

Your best bet to fair benefits is solidarity!

[lutefisk]

26. Great if you aren't a public employee in Wisconsin

Scott Walker not only shut down the unions for public employees, now he's planning to take over the state employees health insurance plans. That won't be pretty.