Undermining Obamacare

In practical terms, large corporations have several ways to undermine Obamacare if they decide to.

One is to support legal challenges to the subsidies given to low-income individuals who buy health insurance on the federal exchange established under the law. Neither the Business Roundtable nor any of its CEO members have done this so far. The Supreme Court is expected to hear oral arguments in the case in 2015.

Another option is to make top executives available for hearings on repealing or diluting Obamacare. "We never did this before," said the person familiar with the executives' thinking. "But they could turn up the noise. I don't think the White House would want the CEOs turning on them and supporting these efforts on the Hill."

The nuclear option would be to radically change employer-sponsored health insurance. Large corporations are highly unlikely to eliminate it, but they might give workers a fixed amount of money to buy coverage on a private insurance exchange. That would allow employers, almost all of which pay workers' medical claims out of their earnings, to cap their healthcare spending.

First « 1 2 » Next