1. What role do employee benefits play in creating and maintaining a high-performance work system? How well do you think health insurance has played that role for large companies in the United States?
2. If large companies stop offering health insurance as an employee benefit, the total compensation package paid to the average employee would be much smaller. How, if at all, do you think employers should make up for that reduction? What would be the impact of your recommendation on employees? On the government and taxpayers?
3. Suppose you work for a large company that is considering dropping health insurance and paying the penalty instead. What is your recommendation in each of the following situations? What other situations might occur?
a. Most other large companies maintain health insurance benefits.
b. Most other large companies drop health insurance benefits.
c. You expect the government will respond by raising the penalties.

In human resource management, as in all business functions, one of the most daunting challenges is that decisions and plans must be made about the future, in spite of all the uncertainties. And recently, the future of employee benefits has entered a stage of enormous uncertainty, at least with regard to health insurance benefits. At the time Congress passed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, this comprehensive law gave rise to a whole host of hopes and fears. By the time you study this case, some of these possibilities may seem far more—or less—certain, but consider the situation facing HR professionals as they wondered about the details of regulations still to be drafted by the Department of Health and Human Services, as well as business responses.