In the latest salvo against the Affordable Care Act, Ways and Means Committee Republicans published a report this week that contends employers would save money by dropping coverage for employees and shifting them to the state health insurance exchanges and paying the $2,000 per employee penalty for doing so.
The report, "Broken Promise: Why ObamaCare Will Force Americans to Lose the Health Care Coverage They Have and Like" is based on a survey of Fortune 100 companies that asked the companies to confidentially provide cost and coverage information. In all, 71 companies provided information to the committee.
"New analysis of the health care costs of Fortune 100 companies indicates the Democrats' health care law threatens the stability and sustainability of the employer-based health insurance system – even among the nation's most prosperous companies," the report stated.
In all, the GOP committee members contend, the employers stand to save $26.8 billion in 2014 if they drop employee coverage and pay the resulting $2,000 per employee fine. The determination was made by using the total amount the companies expect to pay for healthcare among their current employees – roughly $38.4 billion – and subtracting the $9.9 billion it would cost them if they paid the $2,000 fine for dropping coverage.
But House Ways and Means Democrats criticized the report noting that the findings are contrived on the assumption that the companies would, in fact, choose to drop health coverage, versus continuing to provide it as they have done for years.
"According to the logic of this so-called report, businesses could have 'saved' even more money if they dropped employee coverage years ago, which is perfectly legal and carries no penalty," Josh Drobnyk, a spokesperson for Rep. Sander Levin (D-Mich.) told the Washington Post.
The report did not ask employers whether, despite the cost disparities, they planned to continue to offer health benefits to their employees once the ACA provisions went into affect.
A survey by GfK Custom Research North America published in December showed that the majority of all employers – 56 percent – planned to continue offering health benefits even after all the regulation of health reform are enacted.
"This survey suggests that firms aren't considering a wholesale flight from employee healthcare coverage as healthcare reform is implemented," said Tim Nanneman, vice president and director of health insurance research at GfK, in a press release announcing the survey results.
The results were even more marked for employers of 500 or more people, the survey noted, with only 4 percent of those companies saying they would consider dropping coverage.
Still, employer sponsored health coverage has been steadily declining over the past decade as healthcare and insurance costs have continued to climb. According to a recent survey from the Health Research and Education Trust (HRET) and the Kaiser Family Foundation, nearly 60 percent of employers offered employees a health plan, a number that has steadily declined since 2004 when these benefits were offered by 68 percent of employers.