WASHINGTON — AARP‘s endorsement helped pass President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul. Now the powerful seniors’ lobby is telling employees their costs will go up as a result.
In an e-mail to employees obtained by the Associated Press, AARP says employees’ health care premiums will increase by 5 percent — from 8 percent to 13 percent — next year because of rapidly rising medical costs.
“Most plan co-pays and deductibles have been modified,” Jennifer Hodges, AARP’s director of compensation and benefits, wrote employees in the Oct. 25 e-mail. “Plan value changes were necessary not only from a cost management standpoint but also to ensure that AARP’s plans fall below the threshold for high-cost group plans under health care reform.”
AARP says it is also changing co-payments and deductibles to avoid a new goverment-mandated 40 percent tax on high cost “Cadillac” health plans that takes effect in 2018 under the law. Shifting costs to employees lowers the value of a health plan; it’s like an escape hatch from the tax.
AARP officials said medical inflation is the main reason employee costs are rising. Its legislative affairs director, David Certner, says the health care law is “a small part.”
Meredith Jessup
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