Three of the country’s biggest companies — IBM, Time Warner and Walgreen — announced in recent weeks that instead of offering traditional health benefits, they would send some of their current or retired workers to purchase coverage on insurance exchanges. That caused a panic among some Americans who believed major corporations were ending job benefits and turning them over to the government. But health-care experts say it was all a big misunderstanding: The corporate exchanges are completely separate from the exchanges created by the Affordable Care Act. The new ACA exchanges, also known as health-insurance marketplaces, are run either by states or the federal government and cater to individuals. Employers, in contrast, are using private exchanges operated by benefits firms like Towers Watson and Aon Hewitt, which serve employee groups. The private exchanges are not “a result of Obamacare — that’s false,” says Williams, who runs Extend Health, an exchange that has been selling Medigap plans for seven years and will host IBM’s retirees. Sears Holdings and Darden Restaurants already moved active employees to Aon Hewitt’s health exchange in 2013, long before the rollout of the public exchanges. Still, the trend is spreading, and some analysts worry it’s a sign of deteriorating employer health benefits. In the next three to five years, 44% of employers plan to offer health insurance through a corporate exchange, giving workers a fixed dollar amount to spend on coverage, up from 4% today, according to Aon Hewitt.
Posted on: Sun, 27 Oct 2013 04:29:33 +0000
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