Health-Care Reform: Implications for Teachers, ESEA
So what, you ask, are the implications of the health-care reform bill for education?
Well, the main one is that as part of the way to lower the bill's overall costs, high-cost health insurance plans, sometimes called "cadillac" or "gold plated" plans, will be subject to an "excise tax." Many unionized employees, including teachers, have over the years traded higher compensation for better benefits, so this provision stands to affect probably a good number of them.
The teachers' unions, along with organized labor on the whole, lobbied hard to get rid of this provision. They didn't manage to accomplish that goal, but they did win a few major changes.
For one, the excise tax won't kick in until 2018, rather than the 2013 date which was in the Senate's version of the health bill. The income thresholds that would qualify a health plan as a "cadillac" plan are higher than under the Senate bill, and will be aligned to inflation over time. And finally, there will be a mechanism that makes adjustments to the thresholds based on the age and the gender of the group insurance pool. Here's a graphicfrom the Washington Post that explains some of the changes.
Well, the main one is that as part of the way to lower the bill's overall costs, high-cost health insurance plans, sometimes called "cadillac" or "gold plated" plans, will be subject to an "excise tax." Many unionized employees, including teachers, have over the years traded higher compensation for better benefits, so this provision stands to affect probably a good number of them.
The teachers' unions, along with organized labor on the whole, lobbied hard to get rid of this provision. They didn't manage to accomplish that goal, but they did win a few major changes.
For one, the excise tax won't kick in until 2018, rather than the 2013 date which was in the Senate's version of the health bill. The income thresholds that would qualify a health plan as a "cadillac" plan are higher than under the Senate bill, and will be aligned to inflation over time. And finally, there will be a mechanism that makes adjustments to the thresholds based on the age and the gender of the group insurance pool. Here's a graphicfrom the Washington Post that explains some of the changes.
