The following is from the New York Times Editorial Board August 26, 2013 regarding rising health care costs and the recent move by UPS to restrict spousal coverage.
Meanwhile, U.P.S. is joining a small but growing number of companies that decline to cover working spouses who can obtain coverage at their own workplace. The costs and complications of two separate policies may vary from family to family. In some cases, the plans may have different networks of doctors and offer different benefits. U.P.S. says that eliminating a spouse from a family plan could reduce the premium paid by many of its employees by enough to cover some or all of the premium the spouse will have to pay for a separate policy at another company.
Although U.P.S. is taking other steps, such as a tobacco cessation program, to improve employee health and reduce medical spending, the spousal policy will simply shift the insurance burden from U.P.S. to the other company.
Well duh! Hasn’t the other company been shifting its costs to UPS?
Doesn’t Obamacare simply shift costs all over the place? Don’t Medicare and Medicaid shift costs to the private sector? Don’t employers shift costs to employees, albeit with fancy words implying keeping up with the times is good for the employee?
No wonder the health care pie keeps expanding, all we do is shift costs around so one segment feels better. It’s like the person who wants to control his weight, but is happy with feeling comfortable because every six months he buys slightly larger clothes.
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