Say what you will about the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), but it is having a positive effect on the voluntary worksite marketplace.

The majority of Americans seem to feel that health insurance coverage will never be the same and that future coverage will be less comprehensive and more costly. This would continue a decade-long pricing trend where employers passed more of the premium responsibility for health coverage on to the employee even as deductibles and out-of-pocket costs were increasing.

Concerned that the underlying health care coverage may not be enough or even affordable in the years to come, employees have embraced the supplemental products employers are making available to them through both Section 125 cafeteria plans and payroll deduction. Whatever health insurance ends up looking like post-2014, there will be ample opportunity for additional supplemental sales to make up for whatever an employee feels the core benefit package is lacking.