By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Managed Care Weekly Digest -- As firms grapple with the significant cost increases associated with the new health care legislation, the possibility emerges that employers would harass or retaliate against employees in order to avoid the law's financial penalties, according to Peter Molk and Suja A. Thomas (see also University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign).
"The Affordable Care Act incentivizes employers and employees to push in essentially opposite directions," said Molk, an expert in insurance law. "There are safeguards that have been enacted as part of the law, and some already exist to protect employees from what employers might do. But we've identified other areas of the law where it looks like employees aren't as protected as we would want them to be."
"No one is thinking about this aspect of the law right now as a potential issue, but it will no doubt happen as employers begin to actively attempt to minimize the costs they will incur under the law," said Thomas, an expert in employment discrimination.
Under the Affordable Care Act, beginning in January 2015, qualified employers - that is, employers with 50 or more full-time employees - must provide health care coverage or face a fine. Employees also must obtain coverage or pay a penalty.
But given the incentives for employers under the new health care legislation, as well as the past experiences of workers under other discrimination laws, additional protection for workers is warranted, the scholars warn.
"The Affordable Care Act recognizes a lot of problematic interactions and provides protections for some of them," Thomas said. "For example, if an employer fires a worker for taking coverage offered by the employer under the act, the employee can sue for damages."
There are, however, still some very conspicuous holes, Thomas notes.
"For employers, there are three different options: They can provide adequate coverage, inadequate coverage or no coverage at all," she said. "In terms of loopholes, they could offer adequate insurance but could ask job applicants about their coverage in an attempt not to hire people who may seek coverage. They could offer inadequate insurance, but threaten employees not to elect coverage through the health exchanges, because then the employers would have to pay a fine. Or employers could offer no coverage at all and pay the fines, which do increase over time; it might be worth it if they calculate that they come out ahead monetarily by not offering coverage."
Keywords for this news article include: Affordable Care Act, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
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