Large Companies Contemplate Dropping Employee Health Coverage

The Dallas Morning News is reporting that several very large companies "have concluded that they might be financially better off canceling their health care coverage and moving their workers to government-subsidized exchanges that will be available in four years".

At least four companies have investigated to varying degrees the impact of dropping health care coverage and pushing their workers onto the new exchanges, where they will be able to buy their own insurance.

While doing this would subject companies to fines, the size of the fines would be substantially less than the cost of providing health insurance to their workers.

The four companies identified so far are:

*AT&T
*Verizon Communications, Inc.
*Caterpillar, Inc.
*Deere and Co.

If these four are looking at this option, it is a pretty safe bet that other large employers are doing the same.