Despite all of the headaches, cost increases and compliance nightmares, PPACA is not really moving the needle at all on employee participation in employer health plan coverage. Much of that, undoubtedly, is due to the many delays and exemptions in play at the moment.
This is from David Mcann at CFO.com:
Many companies feared that new health-insurance eligibility provisions under the Affordable Care Act that took effect for 2015, as well as the ACA’s individual mandate, would cause more employees to enroll this year, pushing up costs.
Any hand-wringing over the matter appears to have been unjustified, however.
With open enrollment results now in, Mercer reports in “Health Care Reform Five Years In” that there was virtually no change in the percentage of employees, full-time and part-time, who enrolled in employer-sponsored health plans.
While there was a 1.6% increase in the number of employees enrolled, that was the result of a 2.2% increase in the size of the work force. ...
Across all 600 employers that participated in the survey, the average percentage of employees who were eligible for coverage rose just one percentage point.
And the average percentage of eligible employees who enrolled actually dropped a point, from 84% to 83%. That left the average percentage of all employees (both eligible and ineligible) who enrolled in 2015 essentially unchanged from 2014, at 74%.
Enrollment Among respondents in the food and lodging businesses, the industry sector most affected by the 30-hour rule, the average percentage of employees eligible for coverage rose from 57% to 60%. But overall enrollment at those companies crept up by just one point, to 34%. ...
