Podcast Center
Video Center
Webcasts
Resource Center
Events
December 20, 2012 at 06:25 AM
The Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI) asked U.S. workers with group health coverage how they might react to the elimination of the group health tax break employers now enjoy.
Nearly two-thirds the workers said they would stick with their group coverage, and survey participants were even more likely this year than in 2011 to say they would try to stay in the same group plan option.
Paul Fronstin, an EBRI analyst, has written about workers’ views in an article on the EBRI website.
Fronstin based the article on an analysis of results from a telephone survey of 800 U.S. workers ages 21 and older.
Some economists have talked for years about the possibility of reducing the federal budget deficit by eliminating or reducing the federal group health tax exclusion. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 (PPACA) is supposed to impose an excise tax when insurers or plans issue some high-cost health coverage arrangements.
Despite reports that some employers are responding to PPACA by looking for ways to push workers into the new health insurance exchange system that PPACA is supposed to create, the percentage of workers who are confident that their employers or unions will continue to offer health coverage is only a little lower than it was last year, Fronstin said.
