I’ve long been skeptical the employer mandate in Obamacare would make much difference one way or the other. Today Politico has a story suggesting my skepticism was well-founded:
Obamacare’s employer mandate on large businesses barely had an impact on enrollment in employer-sponsored plans this year, according to a new survey.
Human resources firm Mercer on Tuesday released a survey of 572 employers and found very little change between 2014 and 2015 in the average number of full- and part-time workers getting health coverage through their job.
According to the survey, most companies already met employer mandate requirements, and only 16 percent made changes in 2015 to adhere to the law’s 30-hour work week definition. About a third of the employers responding now cover a higher percentage of employees, but the rest either saw no change or cover fewer workers.
Mercer found a 1.6 percent increase in the total number of workers enrolled in employer-sponsored plans, but that stemmed from a 2.2 percent growth in the size of the workforce rather than changes required by Obamacare…
It’s time to start asking what, if anything, the people who wrote this legislation actually understood about the realities of health care. Because they seem to have blown just about every assumption that needed to be made.