Sarah Bassler Millar Quoted in The Washington Post

Chicago partner Sarah Millar was quoted in a Washington Post article, titled, “New health-care law pushing employers to make tough decisions about coverage,” on December 1.

The article discusses the tough decisions facing employers under President Obama’s Affordable Care Act (ACA).  Companies like Canam Steel are constantly tracking the development of private marketplaces run by insurance companies.  Many large employers, such as Walgreens, Sears Holdings and Darden Restaurants, have already started moving in that direction, giving their employees a set amount of money to shop for coverage on the private exchanges.

Sarah said that private exchanges are appealing because they potentially offer employees more options than the few plans their companies offer, and that sending workers to the private marketplaces also offers companies more certainty about their out-of-pocket cost because they can give their workers a set amount of money and let them choose the insurance plan that best fits their needs.

“There is a tremendous amount of pressure on companies to manage expenses, and health-care expenses are becoming an ever-increasing portion of their budget,” said Sarah.  “So they are looking for ways to control cost, ways to ensure that they are mitigating their liabilities. There’s a sense of, ‘If we contract out some responsibility, potentially we have less liability when things go wrong.’ It’s mostly about cost and managing the bottom line,” she said.

To read the full article, please click here.