From Congresswoman Kay Granger
On Tuesday the Congressional Budget Office said the government health care bill will cost taxpayers $115 billion more than what I voted against in March. The bill now costs over $1 trillion. But there is more bad news for employees.
Four major U.S. employers (AT&T Verizon Deere and Caterpillar) are considering dumping the health care coverage they provide to their workers in exchange for paying penalty fees to the government. These companies currently offer health benefits to over 2.3 million employees. That is like cutting off health care for the entire city of Houston.
Non-partisan experts have predicted for months that millions of employees will lose their health insurance as a result of the new law. Just last month the Administrations own Medicare actuaries released their analysis of the legislation warning that 16 million Americans will lose employer-provided health insurance.
How is this happening? The way the new law is written it is much cheaper for many employers to pay the tax penalty than it is to offer health insurance to their employees. For example AT&T spent $4.7 billion on medical costs but would have been taxed a much lower amount ($600 million) for not offering their 1.2 million employees retirees and their dependents health care benefits a savings of $4.1 billion for the company.
As new details of the bill continue to come out I will make sure you hear about it.
