U-M study: Will companies drop health coverage because of Obamacare?

ANN ARBOR-Will 2014 mark the beginning of the end for employer-sponsored health insurance as we know it? Since the passage of the Affordable Care Act in 2010, policy experts have debated that very question. Thomas Buchmueller, a business economics professor at the University of Michigan's Ross School, and colleagues looked at theoretical and empirical evidence to put that question in context in a paper published today in the September issue of Health Affairs. Buchmueller and co-authors Colleen Carey, a postdoctoral fellow in the School of Public Health, and Helen Levy, a professor with the Institute for Social Research and the Ford School of Public Policy, say the models they studied point to a relatively small decline in employer-sponsored coverage as a result of health reform. That's despite Obamacare being cited last month as part of the reason United Parcel Service announced that it would end health care coverage for the spouses of white-collar workers who could obtain coverage through their own employers. The move affects 15,000 spouses. "We need to resist attributing every change in health insurance from here on to Obamacare," Buchmueller said. The economic models that they reviewed predict a relatively small decline in employer-sponsored coverage as a result of health reform, which the authors believe are likely to be correct.