HR Managers Favor Current Health Care System

Seventy-four percent of respondents to a quick poll by Corporate Synergies Group said they preferred the “way things were” when asked “Do you favor health care reform or would you prefer the way things were before the reform?” Most of those surveyed said they intend to offer their employees health insurance coverage similar to what they currently have, but a significant number said they are considering providing less coverage.

A little more than 9% said they are considering putting their employees into the proposed health care exchanges; another 25.8% said they are considering reducing the coverage they offer.

“The people we speak with are grateful the election has passed because now they know the direction in which we’re heading—even if they don’t necessarily like the direction,” John Turner, CEO of Corporate Synergies Group, said. “There are still a lot of variables that need to be considered by employers, but it’s good that the ground has stopped moving beneath our feet.”

The majority of respondents (64.5%) said that during the last several months they have been implementing the changes required by ACA, but others said they are going to play catch-up. About 19% said they need to “speed up implementation”; another 16.1% said they “don’t know where we go from here.”

“Most of the employers we’ve been speaking with over the last year have been incrementally implementing the law and they’re in pretty good shape,” Benjamin Lupin, director of compliance of Corporate Synergies Group, said. “But even those employers will now need to shift into another gear in order to be ready in time to deliver the provisions of ACA to their employees.”

Potentially adding to the confusion of implementation is the widespread belief that the called-for health care exchanges will not be operational by 2014, as mandated in ACA. Approximately eighty-three percent of respondents said they do not expect that deadline to be met.

For more information, visit http://www.corpsyn.com.