Even though the employer mandate has been postponed until 2015, a substantial number of Americans with employee benefits say that their plans will be changing from what they are currently – though when, exactly, is unknown.
Approximately 80 percent of consumers who have health insurance from their employer said that they expect their policy structure to look different at some point in the next 12 months, according to a recent poll performed by The Associated Press and survey research firm GfK. Of these who anticipate the alteration – which most expect to be for the worse rather than the better – more than three-quarters said that they believed the Affordable Care Act was the reason for why it was even happening.
Robert Blendon, a professor at Harvard School of Public Health, indicated that a lot of people are stressed out about what the future holds for them with regards to coverage.
"Rightly or wrongly, people with private insurance looking at next year are really worried about what is going to happen," Blendon told the AP.
He stipulated, however, that while much of the problems stem from the flawed rollout of HealthCare.gov, there are likely other factors at play as well.
One of the issues that people are finding fault with is their costs going up, particularly those that are out-of-pocket. Recently, health information website HealthPocket, performed an analysis on what the out-of-pocket caps are projected to be for the various "metal" plans, specifically bronze, silver, gold and platinum. At nearly $6,275 for an individual, the most expensive is bronze, with an out-of-pocket ceiling of nearly $12,600 for a family of four. The least costly is platinum at $1,800 for one person and just over $3,700 for a family.
Kev Coleman, head of research and data at HealthPocket, noted that these cost projections are for covered medical services provided by healthcare providers who are within an insurance network.
