Monday, April 11, 2011

Funding for Free Choice Vouchers Gets Cut in 2011 Budget

Under Health Reform if an employer has over 50 employees and offers "Minimal Essential Coverage", and the the cost for coverage is between 8% and 9.8% of an employees annual income, they, in 2014, could take those employer dollars to the Health Care Exchanges and purchase coverage under the "Free Choice Voucher Program".  Except, that under the latest budget negotiations, funding for the "Free Choice Voucher" has been eliminated.   This means that employees will no longer be able to take those employer health care dollars to the exchanges. 

Also, in agreements made, there will be several studies performed on the impact of several health care reform law provisions including: Impact on Premiums, Comparative Effectiveness (coming in 2012-Non-Government Entity used to gather and disseminate findings to health care decision makers) and Limited Benefit Plans.