Otherwise doesn't the employer HAVE to provide the coverage?

They can pay the penalty. Its a fairly simple calculus.

Say it cost $10 a year to provide insurance, but the penalty is $5 a year. Walgreens will tell their employees 'we're giving you an extra $4 a year to go to the exchanges'...the hassle of healthcare is gone, and they saved money.

The big question, though....who makes up for the unaccounted for dollar?

The employees are no worse off and get a bigger choice of policies. And the biggest obstacle to single payer is the "I don't need it, my employer covers me" attitude.

This has always seemed one of the 'unintended consequences' of the law....

Maybe I've just got a bad attitude.

The corporations are trying to out-source all cost, and in addition, as many as half the states are freezing or otherwise making access to medicaid much more difficult. In DC, the pragmatic discussion around healthcare costs seems similarly libertarian...attempting to avoid rather than extend the costs of social obligations.

If this the path to single payer, the course is going to include high hurdles and as yet unseen curves.

If they're taking the costs for providing a health plan, then shifting it to the employee's wages so they can purchase plans on their own, I've got no particular problem with it.

If they're just using this as a douchebag means of cutting costs, then it's a problem.

to maintain anything that even begins as a balanced approach.

The easiest approach for them is to freeze the dollar amount of their contributions...inflation will then go to work to reduce the employers' effective costs. Inflation in healthcare is historically extraordinary.

That's the basic reason for the interest in shifting business AND government out from under any obligation to fund it.

My hope all along is that you are indeed correct.

We may eventually end up with something akin to single-payer by default.

system before it's even totally implemented.