Dive Brief:
- CNBC reports that many businesses said the Affordable Care Act is jacking up their employee health coverage costs -- with even more projected increases next year, two new surveys of businesses by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York have found.
- As a result, consumers in the areas covered by the bank could be paying more next year—and some workers at the firms might need to look for a new job, CNBC said.
- Not all firms surveyed, however, said the Affordable Care Act (ACA) is to blame for those cost increases to date. But a majority did, and the percentage of businesses that predicted the ACA will hike such costs next year is even higher than those that said it did this year.
Dive Insight:
While the news sounds grim, the report also noted that more than half of the service firms and almost half of the manufacturers said they were not making any changes to their workforce levels, compensation levels or prices in response to those increased health coverage costs.
Yet, more than half of the manufacturers who responded said they expect Obamacare to drive up their health coverage costs "a lot" in 2015, while one-third of service firms expect Obamacare to increase costs "a lot" next year.
More than half of all the firms are modifying their health plans in response to Obamacare, and of those firms, the large majority are doing so by having workers bear a greater share of the costs of their coverage, either in the form of higher premiums, deductibles or copayments, or some combination thereof, according to the reports.
