WESTLAND, MI — A Detroit News business columnist blasted Obamacare earlier this week, highlighting a local business struggling to cope with its rising premiums.
Columnist Daniel Howes noted that while the CEO of Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan recently received a salary bump to $6.6 million, Jeff Emerson, president of American Gear & Engineering Inc., a small gear-maker, “is looking at sky-high premiums for next year” that leaves him with a difficult choice: either take the bottom-line hit internally, or select a lesser plan that offers fewer benefits for his 47 employees.
“To keep everything apples to apples — we can’t even think about it,” Emerson said. “I can’t absorb it, and I can’t pass it on to my people. The bottom line is that at the end of the year a lot of my people will be worse off, and that’s not right. This is step one. What happens next year? It’s not like they’re going to make it cheaper and easier on us.”
Emerson said to avoid paying more than $107,000 annually in increases healthcare costs for his employees, he will be forced to increase the out-of-pocket limits for his employees 3.5-fold, from $2,000 to $7,000 annually for couples and families. Additionally, he said his company will pay more than $14,000 in fees for the government to offset losses to insurers.
On a monthly basis, the increase breaks down to roughly $8,918.63 more that he must pay. But “we just can’t add on $107,000 to our bottom line in 2014 and expect to stay in business,” said Cheryl Hepp, American Gears’ controller.
American Gear’s lament is shared by many small businesses across the country. Responding to that outcry, the Obama administration announced earlier this week that it would delay by two years the deadline for individuals to obtain health insurance policies that are Obamacare-compliant. However, that extension is too late for companies like American Gear.
“No matter what he says,” referring to the president’s ad hoc changes to Obamacare, “this is what the insurance company is doing,” Emerson said. “They can’t just put the brakes on. So we’ve got the new Obamacare packages. As of June 1 our plan will cease to exist. The sad thing is, everyone in my shop loves it, and they use it.
“His concerns are real and relevant,” said Andy Hetzel, a ranking spokesman for Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan. “We’re sensitive to how much people are paying in the marketplace.”
However, “even as Team Obama arbitrarily alters a law … the tsunami of change it unleashed continues to roll over small business owners and the people who work for them,” Howes concluded. “Neither sensitivity nor nuanced details pay the bills for real people.”