Northampton County wants to reduce health coverage for county employees to avoid ACA Cadillac tax

[Number9Dream]

http://www.mcall.com/news/local/mc-northampton-obamacare-cadillac-tax-20131014,0,5262434.story?page=1&track=rss

Snip> "I can't believe you can be penalized for treating your employees right," Northampton County Executive John Stoffa said. "That doesn't make a lot of sense to me."

Snip> "For fully insured plans the insurance company is actually responsible to pay the tax, though it's assumed the companies will pass the costs on to consumers. In the case of self-insured plans, like the ones carried by both Lehigh and Northampton counties, the employer is on the hook for the tax."

"Obamacare proponents argue that the high-cost plans are bloated over-insurance that shield employees from the true cost and encourage unnecessary tests and visits to the hospital by workers who have no financial stake in their own care."

Snip> "...labor unions in particular, argue that workers who accepted less pay for better health care will be unfairly targeted to absorb the impact of the tax."

[zipplewrath]

1. One of the regressive features

I suspect this cadillac tax got started by people thinking of highly compensated executives with gold plated health care plans. But it turned into a regressive tax on people in unions who had given up pay increases for improved health care. Obama even had to negotiate last minute changes to the law to give the unions time to negotiate new contracts. Between that and the mandate, there are changes that need to be made to this law to fix some of these short comings.

[JPZenger]

2. ... which doesn't take effect until 2018, and which may be removed before then.

[Number9Dream]

3. Cadillac tax may be removed?

JPZ - Have you heard something about the Cadillac tax being removed? That would be great, as my $1,500 deductible Capital Blue Cross plan would still qualify as a Cadillac plan.

The reason Northampton County is proposing reductions now...

Pat Siemiontkowski, Northampton County director of human resources, said, "We're being proactive about this. It would be irresponsible for us to wait until 2018 and then stick our employees with an enormous increase all at once."

Snip> "Northampton County, based on a recommendation from its insurance administrator Capital Blue Cross, is predicting an annual increase of 11 percent. At that rate, its 2014 family plan cost of $22,080 would balloon to more than $33,000 by 2018."

I know Capital Blue Cross can't be trusted, but it's a case of the devil you know.