Will Obamacare Encourage Small Employers to Discriminate Against Older Workers?

I just got our renewal for our small group for January 1, 2014.  Affordable Care Act my a$$.

We have (scratch that, HAD) a pretty rich plan, not quite Cadillac, and not anything close to a union type plan, but the boss cares about his staff in that he wants to provide them with a good plan.  Well, of course, that one is not going to be offered by the insurance company anymore.  But I can keep my plan if I like it, right Mr. President?

So our renewal percentage increase is kind of abstract because the plans don’t match up, but we can still compare the costs to last year.  Yeah, they went up.  A LOT!!!!

So the two plans that are comparable are both about 13% higher than the one we had, there is a worse one for 3% or I can completely change companies for less, but there are fewer doctors available in that network.  Talk about some crappy choices!

All of that aside, we are now rated by age bands.  For a small business, that is a big deal.

We are a small group, so we were totally community rated.  A mid-sized group is usually half community rated, half experience rated.  Once you get over about 200 employees you can usually be totally experience rated.   

So my oldest staff member is going to cost me about $850 a month for single coverage.  My youngest staff member will be about $290 a month.  As a small business person, how can I not take this huge difference into consideration when hiring?  Of course you are supposed to hire based on skills and ability to perform the essential functions of the job.  I get it. But a $500 a month difference is a lot for one employee.  

What a mess?  Don't even get me started about how I am supposed to budget for this.