Earlier this week, I sat down with my health insurance agent to discuss the future of my group health plan. He gave me a litany of issues faced by me and other small business owners.
Beyond not knowing how much my rates will increase in 2015 (my locked-in 2014 rate increase is 9%) or what types of plans will be available, he described the Obamacare trickle down chaos that other small businesses are already facing. These issues include:
- Significant premium increases for those small employers who did not lock in their 2014 rates.
- Unavailability of tax credits for many small employers due to high average employee salary restrictions.
- Influx of employees previously covered under a spouse’s plan onto the small business owner’s plan. This causes significant premium increases per new covered employee depending on age.
- Termination of plan causing employees to seek individual policies. This causes significant premium increases for employees and a downgrade of quality coverage.
Small businesses who pay their employees well, hire older employees and who have covered 100% of their employees’ premiums in the past have a difficult choice to make. Do they absorb the pain or do they pass it on their employees or customers?
Yet again, the Democrats are punishing responsible behavior and the trickle keeps running downward.