Want To See How Health Care Is Going To Impact You Now - Read On

I just received this via email from a FL Pundit regular who received it from a friend who works at the company the email came from. I've changed the name of the company and removed the name of the man who wrote the letter to protect his privacy. I did a google search to see if this was legit and it didn't show up, so it's not something that has been passed around and re-written ten times. That being said, I trust the guy who sent this to me and believe it is a legitimate letter written by a CEO to his employees about the immediate impact of the health care legislation on their health care costs: 

Subject: Health Insurance Renewal

For anyone who watches the news, it has been impossible to escape the debate on health care reform over the last few months. While it is still not clear what impact the passage of this bill will have on businesses, it is clear this will have far reaching implications for health care in America. In the short term, these implications are already being felt at Acme Security and are very negative.
 
The quote for our health insurance renewal in May was a 32% increase from last year’s premiums.  This is far and away the highest rate increase our company has ever seen. The explanation of this incredible rate increase was “the uncertainty surrounding healthcare reform and the resulting financial impact on insurance companies and overall health care costs.” We have also been told to brace for similar percentage increases in the next 3-4 years.
 
This increase in premiums is simply more than Acme Security or the employee can bear. So, for the past several months we have been evaluating our options with different carriers, plan designs, HSA options, coop insurance groups, etc. For a number of reasons, most of these options will not work for our group without a significant change to availability or plan design.
 
In the end, we were left with the difficult task of restructuring our plan design with our current carrier Acme Medical. The end result of which is that we were able to reduce our premiums while still maintaining a high level of coverage for our employees. There are two major changes to our plan design:
 
1.      Deductibles will be going up for both options. Instead of a $500 and $1,000 deductible plan, we will now have $750 and $1,500 options. While this is an increase, we have long carried a very low deductible compared to most companies our size.

2.      Maximum out of pocket limits will be increased from $1000 single and $2000 family for the lower deductible to $1500 single and $3000 for a family. For the higher deductible, the maximum out of pocket limits will be increased from $2000 single and $4000 family to $3000 single and $6000 for a family.
 
While these concessions will reduce our premium costs from the 32% range, this will still result in a 21% increase year over year. It is difficult for me to view a 21% increase as a victory, but is certainly better than the alternative. I also want to stress that the other positive elements of our plan design will remain the same. Some of those are:
 
1.      Coinsurance of 20% in network and 30% out of network.

2.      Co-pays of $20 for office visits and $150 for ER

3.      Tiered Drug card of $8/$35/$50 with 100/$200 deductible.

Acme Security maintains committed to providing the highest level of health coverage possible while striving to pay the bulk of the premium for the single employee plan. This is a unique benefit that few companies our size have been able to maintain. For us that means Acme Security will go from paying $242.10 of each employees health insurance monthly to paying $290. This is an increase of $47.90 per month, per employee paid by Acme Security. The employee’s cost for this single employee plan at the highest deductible will also increase. Currently this plan costs the employee $12.15 per month. This will go up to $17.31 per month and is an increase of $5.16 per month. Joan will be sending an email in the next day or so with further details and you will need to select your choices as you have in years past.

If you have any questions about the details of the new plan, please contact Joan. If you have any thoughts on health care in general, please contact me as I would love to hear your thoughts. Moving forward, as a company we will continue to work to understand the impact of health reform on Acme Security and agressively seek alternatives to contain our costs in the coming years. 

Thank you,

President & CEO

Comments

[Donkey Whacker]

That is very disturbing, but not at all surprising. If the Democrats tell you one thing, believe the other. They lied through their teeth to get this passed into law and we can only hope that they will pay dearly for it in November as more truth comes out about its negative impact on the public.

[Monte Hall]

Democrats are criminals for their lies in passing this into law. The media is criminal for its complicity. Us? We're screwed.

[Bruce]

You mean I can't believe what is at this website: http://www.whitehouse.gov/realitycheck/3 ??
Gee! The White House told me that "If you like your plan, and you like your doctor, you won't have to do a thing, you keep your plan, you keep your doctor. If your employer is providing you good health insurance, terrific, we're not going to mess with it. " Guess that is dependent on those choices continuing to be available.
And all this happened so quickly!!