Tax breaks for employee benefit plans represent a significant loss of revenue for the federal government. In the movement to reduce corporate taxes – and offset reduced federal revenue from those tax cuts - employee benefit plans represent an attractive target for legislators.

I have described the likelihood that, in a post-ACA world, the federal government will step back and the states will have more flexibility and responsibility. The next key player in this equation is the insurance industry.

In my previous post I discussed how the federal role in U.S. healthcare markets is likely to shrink in a post-ACA environment. So, who picks up the slack? It is likely that the largest increases in role/autonomy will go to individual states and insurance companies. This blog post focuses on a potential increase in states’ roles; my next post discusses increased control that may flow to insurance companies. Here’s how this may play out:

As efforts to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare) take shape, it is too early to make specific predictions. But, based on previous proposals and public statements made by some of the key players—and some recently leaked documents - it is reasonable to anticipate some of the broader policy directions that are likely to emerge. This blog post is the first in a series that will discuss some of the shifts likely to emerge in the post-ACA environment.