Wouldn't you just love to have a family health care plan for $40,000 a year?

[eridani]

The 400 managing partners ands top execs at Goldman Sachs are covered by a medical and dental plan that vcosts over $40,000 /year for a family. They pay no co-payments or deductibles, have no limits on doctors or procedures, no restrictions on pre-existing conditions and no requirements for referrals, according to Paul Fronstin, an analyst at the Employee Benefit Research Institute, a Washington nonprofit that studies benefits. Ted Cruz’s wife is one of those covered, so the Senator was able to decline federal employee health coverage.

For details see http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/27/health/policy/27insure.html?_r=0

[mgardener]

1. Why?

Is it always the rich, wealthy, white republicans congresscritters that are against the ACA?
They appear to be so concerned for the people, yet at the end of the day, they have great health care, and they continually want to deny that to others.
I say before Raphael Cruz denies health care to others, he needs to give up his health care and try and find some for his family and PAY the premium himself.

He is a disgusting, vile man.

[stevenleser]

2. There is something weird about this story. In NY, I believe it is not legal to offer one

health insurance plan to one set of members of your company and not to others. I work at a firm in NYC where I have the same plan as the execs precisely because of that. It's not quite the Goldman plan but its good.

[Warren Stupidity]

3. Goldman Sachs is a partnership and the partners are not employees.

And they can compensate themselves any damn way they please, and do just that.

[Nye Bevan]

5. No, they used to be, but they went public years ago (nt)

[stevenleser]

14. No, that's illegal here. I also work for a partnership. I am offered the same plan as the partners.

In NY, it is illegal to not offer the same plan to all members of a firm.

[leftstreet]

4. Wonder how they'll avoid the ACA fines in 2018

9: What is a “Cadillac Health Plan”?

The PPACA imposes a 40 percent excise tax on “Cadillac” health insurance plans. This new tax will apply to health plans valued in excess of $10,200 for individuals and $27,500 for families. Those thresholds will grow annually by inflation plus 1 percent. The tax takes effect in 2018.
http://www.cpehr.com/affordable-care-act-obamacare-for-business

Obamacare attempts to change this dynamic. Under the law, health plans that cost over $10,200 for an individual or $27,500 for a family will have to pay an excise tax of 40 percent on every dollar that they exceed that cutoff beginning in 2018. As Jonathan Gruber, an MIT economics professor who helped design the law, explained to the New York Times, the tax is meant to reorient the way that employers approach their workers’ health problems and their associated costs. “It’s focusing employers on cost control, not slashing,” said Gruber.
http://thinkprogress.org/health/2013/05/28/2064441/employers-obamacare-cut-wasteful-spending/

How Obamacare Is Encouraging Employers To Cut Wasteful Spending And Promote Workers’ Health

By Sy Mukherjee on May 28, 2013 at 4:05 pm

In an effort to cut wasteful U.S. medical spending, certain employers will be scaling back expensive health plans available to their employees and encouraging workers to pursue more preventative and ongoing primary care. The move is being prompted by Obamacare provisions that encourage a more cost-sensitive and efficient approach to Americans’ health care than the status quo.

Recently-released government data shows that Americans’ medical bills are completely random, with some hospitals charging as much as $100,000 more for the same services performed at other facilities. In turn, that drives up the costs of many private health plans, and increases companies’ spending on employer-sponsored insurance.

Obamacare attempts to change this dynamic. Under the law, health plans that cost over $10,200 for an individual or $27,500 for a family will have to pay an excise tax of 40 percent on every dollar that they exceed that cutoff beginning in 2018. As Jonathan Gruber, an MIT economics professor who helped design the law, explained to the New York Times, the tax is meant to reorient the way that employers approach their workers’ health problems and their associated costs. “It’s focusing employers on cost control, not slashing,” said Gruber.

Companies aren’t waiting until 2018 to shift their health care models. Some are increasing their use of high-deductible health plans (HDHPs) — which charge workers low monthly premiums but high annual deductibles — in an effort to raise employees’ awareness of how much their health care consumption costs.

http://thinkprogress.org/health/2013/05/28/2064441/employers-obamacare-cut-wasteful-spending/

[Dragonfli]

6. (HDHPs) high-deductible health plans

"which charge workers low monthly premiums but high annual deductibles — in an effort to raise employees’ awareness of how much their health care consumption costs."

This makes health care affordable to the person needing it how? By teaching them that trying to receive care is too expensive and one should avoid treatment? How .... "Progressive"

I never begrudged union workers and others that were able to negotiate for good access to care their ability to receive it. Why should they be trained to avoid doctors with cost shock therapy? I don't understand how this helps people.

I also don't understand why they specifically designed plans to fit people's class, why make sure to design the highest out of pocket plans specifically for the poorest among the working class? Are the people that can only afford bronze a lesser metal? Do they not realize that because they can't afford a better plan they will also be priced out of getting care because the deductibles and co-pays will be beyond their ability to pay? Why design a system that appears to penalize the lower classes and make it harder , if not impossible to get care using the insurance product they are mandated to buy but can not afford to use ?

I also don't understand why they also wish to make sure that those that for whatever reason have good coverage (like my Dad did at the steal plant) lose it and have it replaced with something specifically designed to make it much harder for them.

This all seams so geared to deny care while providing a fig leaf of "coverage" that is more adversarial to health than supportive of it.

Help me to understand.

[leftstreet]

8. The system was already in place

Why design a system that appears to penalize the lower classes and make it harder , if not impossible to get care...

That's what happens when profits are more important than needs



I can't help you understand it. It's just sickening

[Dragonfli]

12. A system was in place that used the same tactics, but this was designed specifically under the ACA

It is a purposefully regressive class based system, if a progressive designed the system, the "bronze" plans designed for the working poor just above Medicaid access would have the least out of pockets and the "platinum" plans designed for the well to do would have the most out of pocket expenses.

This has a very specific and very class based regressive blueprint behind it. It would be like a tax system where min wage workers payed the highest percentage and the well do do paid the least percentage, regressive.

(oh wait, I think they are perfecting that now with investors paying far less of a percentage on income than workers and the rich are paying nearly zero percent of their income in payroll taxes, never mind, I guess I am just living in the past)

[dawg]

7. And yet some here argue we could instantly provide just such a plan to everyone ...

if only it weren't for that "horrible" compromise we call the ACA.

[leftstreet]

9. If you took out the Privatizers and Profiteers, you could

How many insurance, hospital, pharma execs and stockholders are getting rich off national plans in places like Canada, the UK, Iraq, etc ?

[dawg]

11. Our health care system is in the stranglehold of a multi-tentacled beast.

We must chop off one tentacle at a time if we are ever to be free of it. The ACA is an imperfect first step, but it gets the process started.

We've been trying to wish single-payer into instant existence ever since the 1940's. If anything, our chances of that have gotten progressively smaller and smaller.

But now, we have a credible path for getting there. And that is a good thing.

Considering the political realities of the country right now, I don't see any other way of ever making it happen.

[csziggy]

10. I wonder if Goldman Sachs is technically "self insured"?

My husband works for FedEx in a low level position. They are self insured though they pay CIGNA to administer the program. I'm not sure how the details of the system works, but I am pretty sure that the more claims CIGNA, the more money CIGNA makes. And I do not know how this affects FedEx under the ACA - we received a letter from FedEx HR indicating that their program meets ACA requirements so employees would not be eligible for ACA policies.

Does anyone here know how companies that self insure are affected under the ACA if at all?

[M0rpheus]

13. Where the money comes from really has no effect.

Self insured - The company pays claims through the administrator.
Fully insured - the administrator pays all claims and ultimately recoups their losses in higher premiums going forward.

Either way, as long as the actual plans meet the ACA requirements, there is no real impact.

I prefer companies that self-insure, because they can be shamed into making changes/exceptions to coverage situations. They're ultimately paying the bills, so they get to set/change the rules. It's not easy to force that change, but it can be done, provided there is an actual human being in HR.

And I'm 99% certain that Goldman is Self-insured based on the company that does their benefits and knowing a few former members of that team.