90.1 FM WABE, Atlanta’s NPR station, recently interviewed David Laband, Chair and Professor of the School of Economics, in response to UPS’s recent decision to drop as many as 15,000 employee spouses from the company’s health insurance.  He was asked whether other corporations would follow UPS’ lead. 

His response, “In effect, what we are talking about here is a cost shift from the companies to taxpayers, individual citizens, who are going to be, in essence, coerced to sign up for the plan and that’s not a good sign…I would think that the Blue Cross/Blue Shield system for the state of Georgia would have enormous financial incentives to, in effect, follow the lead of UPS.”

The interviewed aired live on Thursday, August 22, 2013 and appears in an article on the station’s website.