General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: The nation's large self-insured employers are beginning to abandon their health benefit programs [View all]Gormy Cuss
(30,884 posts)Their pool of participants is large enough that they can manage the risk effectively while still providing good health care benefits. This shift to cash payments to workers will make it even cheaper because now the company has NO risk and complete control over costs of this benefit. Workers will get screwed unless they have the time to take on another new job, namely understanding complex health care plans in order to make an informed choice.
Just like the pension to 401K, it's sold as empowering workers but what will happen all too frequently is that it will leave the employees at a disadvantage.
BTW, the point of a 401K without employer contributions is that you are offered specific funds for investment rather than having to go find them on your own and also if your income is large enough a 401K allows you to defer taxes on more money annually than an IRA would. As for employer matching it's actually quite common to have no employer contribution (nearly half in 2010 according to the National Compensation Survey.)