2013
Beginning in 2014 employer health benefit plans are hit with a new fee on each participant in the plan, not each employee; each person enrolled in the plan. For large employers this is hundreds of thousands, even millions of dollars. The fee is intended to subsidize some of the risk for insurers in the health insurance exchanges. The fee varies, but is somewhere near $63 per person.
So, if you get your coverage through your employer, most employers are adding this cost to the premiums (and rightly so) and therefore you are paying your share based on the percentage of the premium you pay.
In other words, you are subsidizing people in the health insurance exchanges both with your tax dollars (via their tax credits) and through your higher health insurance premiums at work.
If you are a person who is cheering all the free stuff and goodies in Obamacare, just remember there is nothing that is free.
It gets worse though because by reimbursing insurers for high claim costs on individuals during a “transition period, ” when the transition period ends, supposedly in three years, premiums will increase to make up the difference … or … somebody in Washington will propose this temporary fee be extended which means it really is a new tax on you and your employer. Interestingly, you don’t hear about this when commentators like Paul Krugman cheer the lower than anticipated premiums in the marketplace plans.
Related articles
- Pre-existing conditions and the health insurance premiums you pay (quinnscommentary.com)
- Trader Joe’s Explains Why It’s Cutting Health Benefits For Part Timers (swampland.time.com)
DONT FORGET TO VOTE IN OUR LATEST POLL
QUINNSCOMMENTARY 
One comment