Last week I wrote a LinkedIn post urging employers to collaborate with insurers and other businesses and use their collective clout to hold the line on over the top hospital and other medical care costs. Little did I know at the time that employers were actually collaborating with insurers and others on a health insurance plan issue. Unfortunately, the issue that they see as most worth collaborating on involves maintaining the status quo. Specifically, employers are working with unions, big pharma, large health insurance companies, benefit association groups and others to repeal the Affordable Care Act’s (aka Obamacare) “Cadillac tax.”

Earlier this month 17 organizations including Cigna Corporation, Pfizer Inc., Laborers International Union of N.A., BCBS Association, American Benefits Council, and Independent Insurance Agents and Brokers of America registered as the lobbying group, Alliance to Fight the Forty. The “forty” these groups are fighting is the 40% excise tax, included in the Affordable Care Act, on benefit plans worth more than $10,200 for individuals and $27,500 for families. The tax is effective starting January 1, 2018, and indexed to inflation thereafter.

The tax affects an extremely small percentage of health plans and individuals (in the future, not in 2018). Benefits up to the threshold amount are not subject to the tax, so participants in these plans only pay the tax for amounts above the $10,200 and $27,500 limits. In addition to generating revenue to increase access to health insurance to individuals without coverage, a goal of the tax is to discourage offering extremely generous health benefits with low employee premiums and cost sharing.

Wrong Side Of History

It is easy to understand why unions, brokers, insurers and large employers want to repeal the Cadillac tax. The tax is a potential major disruption to the generous benefits their constituents currently receive. Unions in particular have a long history of thwarting meaningful national health care reform because of their focus on their members to the exclusion of everyone else. Continue Reading...

Tags: Alliance to Fight the 40, obamacare