Obamacare requires employers to provide “affordable” health insurance to full-time employees, and for the purposes of the law, the word affordable is defined very specifically:
Coverage is deemed to be not “affordable” according to the ACA if the employee’s share of the annual premium for self-only coverage is greater than 9.5 percent of their annual household income. An employer plan must cover at least 60 percent of total allowed costs to meet the ACA’s minimum value requirement, and offer “substantial” coverage for in-patient hospitalization services or physician services (or both). Employer plans are also required to offer certain preventive care services on a no-cost basis to participants, and a range of additional benefits, such as the age-26 adult dependent coverage requirement and no annual or lifetime limits on essential health benefits.
Given that the authors of Obamacare had a very specific idea in mind for what constitutes affordable insurance, the American Health Policy Institute is out with a new study that asks a very interesting question: Does Obamacare meet its own standards for affordability? The answer is no. Here are a couple of the key findings from AHPI’s study:
Even now, under the Affordable Care Act’s own definition, over 105 million Americans will find plans in the ACA’s [Affordable Care Act’s] public exchanges to be “unaffordable” when both premiums and deductibles are taken into account.
Over 13 million employees with employer based coverage – 3.0 million with individual coverage, and 10.4 million with family plans – are now facing the prospect of “unaffordable” health care.
Over 13 million employees with employer based coverage – 3.0 million with individual coverage, and 10.4 million with family plans – are now facing the prospect of “unaffordable” health care.
You can read the full study from AHPI here.
