Large employers are successfully integrating the principles and requirements of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act into their benefits programs, with many finding that they have been able to contain the overall cost of providing health benefits to employees.
That’s the general conclusion of a four-year data analysis by ADP. Its “2015 Annual Health Benefits” study was designed to determine “whether U.S. employers have managed health care costs effectively from 2013 to 2015 — those crucial two years marking the points right before and after key ACA provisions went into effect.” While employers have experienced difficulties and had to conform with a whole new benefits playbook to comply with the act, they are doing so without many of the disruptions experts had predicted awaited them following the law’s creation.
The study both supports and contradicts testimony presented to Congress recently by the Society for Human Resource Management. SHRM described member experience with the act as difficult, costly and overly time consuming.
The testimony spoke mainly to the experiences of human resources professionals, many at smaller companies. ADP’s study involved employers with 1,000 or more employees, companies with considerable administrative resources. ADP agreed that compliance consumed valuable corporate resources and often proved vexxing.