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Published January 26, 2017
This is a rush transcript from "Your World," April 3, 2014. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
NEIL CAVUTO, HOST: Stick a syringe in them. A new study shows that the health care law is sucking cash out of companies, and fast.
When asked, large companies said that ObamaCare is costing them at least $4,800 more per worker, something Governor Jindal says his plan will not do.
The fact of the matter, though, is that Tevi Troy, who heads the group behind the survey, says it's a very, very real concern.
Tevi, what do you make of that, and that these are bosses saying you wonder why we can't hire and you wonder why we can't expand, this is it.
TEVI TROY, FORMER HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES DEPUTY SECRETARY: Yes, thanks, Neil, for having me.
This report is really a sea sweep diagnosis of what is going on in the boardrooms. So, the CEOs are seeing this material and they're saying we're going to see $160 million to $200 million in cost increase over a 10-year period as a result, as a direct result of ACA, and they are going to have to make changes to the offerings that they provide. I think it's real window into what is going on in the corporate boardrooms.
CAVUTO: You know, when I talk to a number of Democrats about these kinds of surveys that come out, and about CEOs, be it larger or medium companies, kvetching about the cost of this, they're not convinced it's accurate. They think they make up those figures off and that the costs won't be that onerous, and that employers were already paying a lot, and the increases for the health care coverage they were providing workers were already all too real.
What do you say to that?
TROY: Well, look, my response to that would be, we talked to the companies directly. We got their internal private costs. We don't release the names of the companies for that reason, so that they can keep this information private.
And they're giving us the information that they're sharing with their CEOs. So perhaps some numbers in that will not turn out as expected, but the fact of the matter is, CEOs and chief human resource officers are making decisions based on these best internal estimates that they have right now. And I think that's the key part of this study.
CAVUTO: What did you make of Robert Gibbs saying maybe it's -- the mandate thing goes, the employer mandate thing goes? What would that mean to these guys if it did? They're off the hook, right?
TROY: Well, I don't know about off the hook.
There's very good reasons that employers provide health care to their employees. It helps them get a competitive edge in terms of attracting workers. They want to have healthy employees. If let's say one worker goes down with a stroke or a heart attack...
(CROSSTALK)
CAVUTO: No, I'm sorry. My question wasn't clear. And that's my fault.
What I'm thinking is, I'm saying, he left it open there. I don't know if Robert Gibbs is a lawyer. I know his old boss is a lawyer -- and that maybe they're leaving some wiggle room here that you can have two different types of coverage, one of that has the strict qualifications of the president's plan, which are very onerous, very expensive, and one maybe -- that is what Gibbs is telegraphing here -- an option for companies to keep providing what they have that might not meet the strict requirements of that plan, in other words, an out.
TROY: Well, I like the idea of letting them keep providing what they have, because the fact of the matter is, the vast majority of people in the employer-sponsored market are happy with the coverage they get. So, I would like to see it.
It's not something we have been hearing from the administration for four or five years. So this would be a new development. I also think it is interesting that, for example, Zeke Emanuel, who was one of the architects of the law, he got up there and he said that he thinks the employer- sponsored health care is going away.
He certainly wasn't saying that when they were trying to pass the law.
CAVUTO: Well, you could also be forcing the bosses to give up on insurance altogether, which might have been the goal all along as well, right?
TROY: Well, I'm not going to get into the motivations of the people behind the law.
But the fact of the matter is that this study shows that the law imposes significant costs on these employers, larger than anticipated, and these are real numbers that CEOs and chief human resource officers are looking at when making their decisions.
CAVUTO: All right, Tevi, thank you very, very much.
In the meantime, we are going to crunch the numbers that the White House was giving us on how many have signed up for this. That 7.1 million figure, it's off, and it's not off just a little.
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