Don’t miss this New York Times article–“States and Employers Duel Over Health Care“–reporting how many states have been looking into legislation that would attempt to shift more of the cost of health care onto employers. Excerpt from the article:
The focus of the debate is whether there should be an employer mandate,” said Ellen Valentino, Maryland director for the National Federation of Independent Business, whose state group of small companies opposed the legislation.But backers of the Maryland bill, which seemed to take special aim at . . the nation’s largest employer, say the support for it there indicates a growing recognition of the growing financial burden of caring for the uninsured. They say taxpayers are unfairly supporting too many companies’ uninsured workers, who turn to government programs like Medicaid or simply show up in the emergency rooms of hospitals subsidized by the state to provide care to people unable to pay.
Also, this graphic here illustrates which states have considered some type of legislation that would place more of the responsibility for health care on employers.