Open Enrollment Will Be Different This Year
Employers should expect the Big Beautiful Bill Act to have big health insurance repercussions, including an increase in employees seeking coverage.
Good Morning!
Here are today’s highlights:
Despite the backlash, the latest version of ChatGPT is actually more business-like.
President Trump says a court ruling against his tariffs would trigger a “GREAT DEPRESSION!”
U.S. wholesale prices, which indicate where inflation is headed, just took their biggest leap in three years.
As inflation rises, “Made in U.S.A.” loses some of its appeal to consumers.
HUMAN RESOURCES
Trump’s big beautiful bill will have a big impact on employer health plans: “Open enrollment is only a few months away, and benefit leaders may face new and unprecedented challenges — and it's all to do with President Trump's new act. In July, the Trump administration signed into law the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which focuses primarily on tax cuts and spending reform and affected funding to many public services such as Medicaid, Medicare, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and the Children's Health Insurance Program. These changes will have sweeping repercussions for employees everywhere, and will be reflected in the way they enroll in their benefits this year.”
“The first and most significant difference leaders will face is in the volume of employees seeking benefits, [Katie Carroll of Empyrean] predicts. Restricting funding into public programs, specifically Medicaid and Medicare, will result in tighter eligibility for those programs — which will cost many individuals crucial healthcare coverage and force them to turn to employer-sponsored plans to make up for the loss. Benefit leaders should also anticipate a rise in dependent enrollment for that same reason.”
“When the number of employees and dependents rises, a plan's overall risk pool gets bigger and costlier. That increased spending has to be recovered through higher premiums, higher deductibles, or reduced coverage levels. As a result, leaders may see employees turning to certain benefits to help them stay above water.”
“‘More people are going to be enrolling high deductible plans because that's just all they can afford,’ Caroll says. ‘From there, they are probably going to be using things like HSAs and FSAs as a way to save money and set aside cash.’” READ MORE
