Summary
- Goal: To examine the conditions that might lead employers to offload the provision of health benefits.
- Issue: Employer-sponsored health benefits have persisted despite recent policy changes and broader trends, such as the Affordable Care Act (ACA), private health exchanges, and health care cost inflation. However, new policy initiatives, such as the extension of ACA subsidies and the provision of a public option, may cause companies to reconsider their practice of offering health benefits to their workers.
- Methods: We conducted interviews with more than two dozen benefits executives working in a variety of industries and representing firms that employ from 300 to 250,000 employees.
- Key Findings and Conclusion: Employers often view themselves as paternalistic: they wish to make it easier for their workers to get affordable health coverage. They also do not want to relinquish control over health plans, viewing health benefits as a valuable recruitment and retention tool. Accordingly, the benefits executives we interviewed found it difficult to imagine future circumstances that would lead their companies to stop providing health coverage.