Is Obamacare good for the nurses?

[Lisa321]

http://www.examiner.com/conservative-in-national/breaking-obamacare-prompts-top-companies-to-consider-dropping-employee-coverage

The article above stated that 30% of the U.S. companies will drop employee's health coverage in 2014. Do you think it is going to be harder for nurses to find work?

[NRSKarenRN, BSN, RN]

article states that four big companies considering dropping coverage --looking if it makes financial sense to continue insurance versus paying penalties for not covering workers in exchange for employees to purchase insurance from goverment "health exchanges". salaries, however would need to increase to offset the ~ $5,000+ cost of no-frills to "cadillac" policies costing $20,000.

want to talk about the workflow disruption this would cause at at&t, verizon, john deere and caterpillar if they went through with this idea ... loss of key employees jumping ship to other companies and ire public would have? all business constantly look at ways to cut costs--especially health insurance who's costs are difficult to predict yr to yr.

ana's capital update has good article re impact on nurses:

what’s going on in health reform

may 26th, 2011

with congress mired indefinitely in political conflict over possible repeal of the affordable care act, federal departments and agencies – as well as the states – are proceeding to carry out aca’s blueprint for health reform according to schedule, as required by law.

new regulatory rules, appointments, and programs are announced every day. many of these will significantly impact patient care and access to health benefits – and thus nursing care and policy.

read more...

[WIN007]

health care costs are astronomical and a huge expense so I would think any corp would that could eliminate this and offload to an exchange would be happy to do so. to me that's not a bad thing as US companies have to provide health benefits makes us inherently more expensive and less competetive with global workforces. for me as a taxpayer it's cheaper to have the exchanges than it is for legions of uninsured to use the ED as their PCP.

[KeepClimbing]

I think the intent is to separate health insurance from your employer. I do believe it is awkward to have your place of employment be your only affordable source of insurance. I can't think of too many downsides to this separation unless the price of insurance coverage goes up.