"White House official: 'The exchanges will open to more and more people'"

[Clio the Leo]

White House official: 'The exchanges will open to more and more people'

On a conference call earlier today, the union representatives mentioned that the exchanges would open to collective bargaining units and Taft-Hartley plans in 2017. This is, potentially, a very big deal. But details are hard to come by. Does it mean that the exchanges open up to all employers in 2017? A later conference call with White House officials saw repeated questions on this front (including one from me), and a studied vagueness: "We're working very hard on the exchanges," they said. But there was a clue to the direction the bill is moving: "Over time, the exchanges will open to more and more people," said one of the officials on the call.

Union officials seem pretty sure that collective bargaining units of all sizes will be included in the exchanges in 2017. That's part of the excise tax deal, in their mind. If they can get a better deal in the exchanges, which have all sorts of plans and a much larger risk pool, then they should be able to go get that deal rather than sticking with pricier insurance that's vulnerable to the new tax.

They're right about that, and this is exactly the sort of movement toward a more competitive, price-conscious insurance market that the excise tax is designed to encourage. Indeed, if the combination of the excise tax and union concerns with the vulnerabilities of the employer-based market lead Congress to open the exchanges in 2017, then this has been a successful negotiating process indeed.

By Ezra Klein | January 14, 2010; 6:08 PM ET
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2010/01/did_the_unions_and_the_excise.html