The Employer Mandate: Essential or Dispensable?
<p>There is growing talk of repealing the Affordable Care Act's requirement that employers provide access to affordable health insurance coverage. To unpack this issue, The Commonwealth Fund's David Blumenthal, M.D., and David Squires take a look at the ACA provision itself, why it was enacted, and the potential upside and downside of repeal.</p><p>In their <a href="/blog/2014/employer-mandate-essential-or-dispensable">new blog post</a>, Blumenthal and Squires explain that the provision is essentially "a requirement that businesses <em>share responsibility </em>for the costs of covering all Americans, either by helping to buy insurance directly for their own employees, or helping the federal government do so….The most successful American social programs—such as Social Security and Medicare—rely on this concept of shared responsibility."</p>
<p>The authors review the case for repeal—the potential impact on hiring, or example—as well problems that repeal might create, including erosion over time in the quality of employer-sponsored insurance.</p>
<p><a href="/blog/2014/employer-mandate-essential-or-dispensable">Visit The Commonwealth Fund Blog for the complete post.</a></p>