Help me make sure I have this straight about employers dropping spouses from insurance ...

[zbdent]

Now, I heard a number of people saying that their spouse is being dropped from their employers' health care coverage, and having to buy it. (or they are the spouse being dropped).

I also remember, not too many years ago, the meme was going around that "Hey, you're getting X amount in health care coverage through your employer. That hasn't been taxable, and that's " (for lack of a better term) "an undocumented benefit. Here, you lucky employees now have to pay taxes on that heretofore untaxed 'compensation' you're getting."

All of a sudden, those "benefits" you get for being employed are now being reported to you ...

and have these "spouses" who are pointing out the "new" cost of their health care ... did they actually look at what they would have been paying if they had to pay the full cost, not just what the employer's coverage (which was used to entice you to work for them for maybe less) left you having to cover?

Oh, and since you've been getting such a "great deal" with the employer's coverage, then ...

If you chose not to get coverage from employer X, shouldn't you have gotten the FULL amount that they would had been deducting, instead of just the difference you would have had to pay had you taken their available coverage?

[MANative]

1. Can't speak to all of them, but at UPS...

the only spouses being dropped are those who have health insurance benefits provided by their own employer. If the spouse does not work, or does not have employer-sponsored health insurance, they will still be able to stay on their spouse's UPS-provided coverage.

[Warren Stupidity]

2. Under the ACA, companies are not required to provide insurance for anyone other than the employee

and the penalty for failure to provide employee coverage, under the ACA, is a) deferred, b) smaller than the cost of providing insurance.

Generally if a company offers "+1" or "family" coverage that is at an additional cost to the employee. If a company is dropping spousal or family coverage, that is not the fault of the ACA, it is the ongoing disaster that is our crappy employer based health insurance system doing what it does best: not providing access to health care to people.