Daily News Updates - Health Insurance News

Elect Health Insurance, Pt.5 – McCain’s impending demise for employer insurance.

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As if employer-based health insurance didn’t already have enough problems already, Mr. McCain will be taxing it for the first time ever. Experts expect this to be the final demise of employer-based health insurance as we know it. Most believe that this is McCain’s strategy anyway. He is quite vocal about touting individual-risk based private health insurance. Selling the portability of it (in case one changes jobs), he fails to mention that it’s also much more lucrative for the industry as well.

In all fairness, his plan does benefit some Americans – those both young and healthy at the same time. They will be ‘cherry-picked’ and lured away from the risk-sharing pools offered by employer-based health insurance by cheaper premiums. When this happens, of course, the costs of the employer-based health insurance plans will soar. Employers are expected to bail out like flies when it does.

In a September survey sponsored by the American Benefits Council, companies were asked what would happen if employer-based health insurance started being taxed for the first time ever. About 74% of them responded with she statement that it would have a "strong negative impact on their workforce." There are many varied projections from the experts about what would happen, though all seen to slant the same way. The non-partisan Tax Policy Center expects about 20 million Americans to lose their employer-based health insurance coverage by the year 2018. They suggest that about that same amount would move over to individual-risk policies or other alternatives.

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November News...