Detroit Looks to Health Law to Ease Costs – NYTimes.com

2013

Detroit Looks to Health Law to Ease Costs

By MONICA DAVEY and ABBY GOODNOUGH

Published: July 28, 2013

As Detroit enters the federal bankruptcy process, the city is proposing a controversial plan for paring some of the $5.7 billion it owes in retiree health costs: pushing many of those too young to qualify for Medicare out of city-run coverage and into the new insurance markets that will soon be operating under the Obama health care law.

via Detroit Looks to Health Law to Ease Costs – NYTimes.com.

Cool uh? At last, Obamacare may save taxpayers money. No wait, that’s certain local and state taxpayers, federal taxpayers, that’s you, will pay more. Remember when people said, I think that includes me, that employers would figure out they can save money by shifting people to the health insurance exchanges? Here you go, it’s perfect, dump your early retirees (an older sicker group generally), eliminate your retiree medical lability and pay no penalty as the Obamacare employer mandate does not apply to retirees. Oh yes, when all this happens it probably means higher premiums in the exchanges as well.

As things are developing, public union employees, among the most vocal supporters of Obamacare, may be among the biggest losers. Apparently if you worked for a government entity that is in tough fiscal shape, you may not get you keep the coverage you like. This may be a tad harsh, but public employees … welcome to the real world and what has happened to millions of private sector workers.