A New York Times article debunked the right-wing myth that the Affordable Care Act (ACA) would cause employers to stop providing health benefits to employees, reporting that “widespread predictions that employers would leap at the chance to drop coverage and send workers to fend for themselves” were “largely wrong.” In fact, according to the Times, “Most companies, and particularly large employers, that offered coverage before the law have stayed committed to providing health insurance.”

Right-wing media have relentlessly hyped debunked myths and evidence-free claims about the ACA since its passage, including the claim that the health care law would lead employers to cut jobs or shift workers to part-time, that millions would lose their employer-based coverage, and horror stories about rising costs and scaled-back coverage.

The April 4 article explained that“emerging consensus” holds that the health care law “has not upturned the core of the country's health insurance system,” noting that employers are expected to “remain the source of coverage for a majority of working Americans for the next decade” and even “seem to be staying the course even more strongly than they did before the law.” The article pointed out that, in fact, “health care remains an important recruitment and retention tool” in the labor market, and employers are accordingly “responding” to employees' expectations of receiving health benefits: 

The Affordable Care Act was aimed mainly at giving people better options for buying health insurance on their own. There were widespread predictions that employers would leap at the chance to drop coverage and send workers to fend for themselves.

But those predictions were largely wrong. Most companies, and particularly large employers, that offered coverage before the law have stayed committed to providing health insurance.

As it turns out, health care remains an important recruitment and retention tool as the labor market has tightened in recent years. Desirable employees still expect health benefits, and companies are responding, new analyses of federal data show.

“We're more confident than ever that we'll offer benefits,” said Robert Ihrie Jr., a senior vice president for Lowe's Companies, the home improvement retailer.

Companies get a sizable federal tax break from providing the insurance. And if they dropped the coverage, many workers would expect the money in their paycheck to increase enough to pay for outside insurance -- or would look for a new job.

The reversal in thinking about employer benefits is so stark that even government budget officials are singing an optimistic tune. They lowered the number of people they think will lose coverage because of the health law and now predict employers will remain the source of coverage for a majority of working Americans for the next decade.

The surprise turnaround adds to an emerging consensus about the contentious health law: It has not upturned the core of the country's health insurance system, even while insuring millions of low-income people.

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Employers seem to be staying the course even more strongly than they did before the law. The percentage of adults under 65 with employer-based insurance held firm for the last five years after steadily declining since 1999, according to an analysis of federal data released last month by the Kaiser Family Foundation, which closely tracks the health insurance market.