One-third of employers will drop health coverage according to a recent McKinsey survey. That's a staggering amount when you think about the actual numbers involved.
What would it to do our industry if one-third of the health plans just disappeared?
In 2009, the most recent year for which we have a full picture, there were 22,054 ERISA-qualified*, non-union health plans on the books. Ignoring the filings where the administrator clearly forgot how the number zero works, there were 37.1 million lives covered in those plans, $85 billion in premiums and, perhaps most critically, those plans represented $2 billion in fees and commissions to their brokers.
Recommended For You
Multiply those numbers by 30 percent.
What happens to our industry when the brokers, the cogs that keep the whole thing moving, are suddenly out more than half a billion dollars? And that's just scratching the surface: it's a drop in the bucket compared to the small plan market that's not covered by ERISA.
Here's a better question. If we could tell you which of your clients were planning to drop coverage as a result of the reform, would you want to know? Or is ignorance bliss?
*ERISA only requires filing by health plans with 100 or more participants. In this author's opinion, that's a major flaw. Write your federal representatives.Get more: Coverage of McKinsey's employer health care survey
© 2025 ALM Global, LLC, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to [email protected]. For more information visit Asset & Logo Licensing.
