Thursday, May 06, 2010

Shocker: Employers Contemplate Dropping Insurance

Dammit, I'm getting tired of being right.

Documents reveal AT&T, Verizon, others, thought about dropping employer-sponsored benefits

The great mystery surrounding the historic health care bill is how the corporations that provide coverage for most Americans -- coverage they know and prize -- will react to the new law's radically different regime of subsidies, penalties, and taxes. Now, we're getting a remarkable inside look at the options AT&T, Deere, and other big companies are weighing to deal with the new legislation.

Internal documents recently reviewed by Fortune, originally requested by Congress, show what the bill's critics predicted, and what its champions dreaded: many large companies are examining a course that was heretofore unthinkable, dumping the health care coverage they provide to their workers in exchange for paying penalty fees to the government.

Of course,some of us would argue that Democrats want employers to drop coverage since it's the quickest way to government controlled health care.