As someone who covers health care a lot, I've wondered whether it might be easier to write my stories if I could have the phrase "rapidly rising cost of health insurance" assigned to the F-1 or F-2 button at the top of my computer keyboard. After experiencing several decades in which the cost of health insurance rose faster than the rate of inflation, Americans have come to grudgingly expect that health insurance (if you're lucky enough to have it) will be significantly more expensive each year.
But is the "rapidly rising cost of health insurance" (there it is again!) truly a fait accompli? There's some evidence that it is possible to buck the trend. How? Well, in the past, companies typically looked at managing the cost of health benefits. Fair enough. But the companies which "buck the trend" take a different approach: instead of focusing on the health plan, they focus on the health of their workforce, and how to improve it.
The Towers Perrin consulting firm, which has studied the approaches to health insurance of hundreds of Fortune-1000 companies, calls these companies "high performers." These companies can see significant cost-savings in their health plans if they have a long-term commitment to the health of their people. Towers Perrin's 2009 report showed that these "high performing" companies paid an average of $1200 less per plan, per worker compared to companies where the traditional focus has been on finding cheaper health plans or shifting more costs to employees.
And there's some evidence that this new focus is changing the nature of health care insurance prices. In the first half of the 2000s, insurance costs rose by double-digit amounts. Since 2005, these increases have been in the high single-digits. That's still faster than the rate of inflation, but certainly more manageable. And for private-sector workers, and the HR people who have to renew the corporate health plan each year, a "healthier workforce" might offer a partial solution to the nation's perennial problem to (hit F-1 key now) the "rapidly rising cost of health insurance."
Tune in to the PBS Special Report on Health Care Reform on Thursday, September 24th at 9 PM on PBS stations across the nation.
Comments
I have been watching all the Health Reform shows. Why are we paying twice as much for health care, on average, as people in Europe and Japan who get just as good care as us. Could someone just 'Follow the Money' and tell us where it is going?
i am not sure where to state this. but i very recently got a job with a very large construction company. they offer health insur. but at a high cost . i was also asked to take a two dollar an hour cut in pay to help deal with the econimy. it really wasn't an opption tho. take it or lose the job. ! so i can not aford the insurence for me or my family. i make too much for gov. assistence .
so a week ago will at home i cut my hand pretty bad. severed the tenden which rendered my left index finger almost useless. i went to the local emergency room. they stiched it up and made me an apointment with an orthapidice surgen the next day. i was told to call first thing in the morning , because i only had a 10 day window to have the tenden repaired, or i would then lose the use of for ever.
so i called first thing in the morning (it's now friday) and they told me i would need either insur. or a $200.00 deposit to be seen by the doctor. well i talked them in to seeing me with only $96.00 in hand. after the doctor examined me he then told me that i needed to come up with at min. $1200.00 by monday to have the surgery needed to repair the finger.plus i wopuld need to arange something with the hospital for there bill and also the anastesialogist. this was all to be taken care of before they would acually schedule me for surgery.
i thank heaven am a veteran . i wasin the navy 30 years ago. and had no idea if they could do any thing for me . since i was no longer in the military or was i a war time vet, neither applyed to me . so over the years i was told that i had not medical benif. i went to the VA ask them to help. within 1 1/2 hours i was set up with another apointment the following day at 11:00am. i arrived at 11:05, by 2:30pm of that day i was walking out of the VA with my finger surgery done. they had fixed in 3 1/2 hour , what the local hospital and doctor ANDREW CURRAN orthapedice surgen had told me would cost in the 10's of thousands of $ and have to be PREXISTING FINANCE FIRST. IM HAPPY TO SAY THANK YOU FOR THE MILITARY WHICH IS GOVERMENT!!!!!!!!!!!!
I work for a small construction company as the office manager and work with the owner's wife to, each year, negotiate the employee's insurance. They always choose a plan for them that is not even the "Prevailing Wage" mandatory Health & Welfare amount they are required to pay on public projects! You are too naive in believing the small business owners as they cry "poor" in those interviews. My boss is wealthy and also very greedy to keep it that way. He avoids taxes by putting personal expenses on the company and his family has company cars, gas cards, cell phones, computers, car insurance, etc. They also have a Cadillac insurance plan while taking the employees down to a very high deductible, and out-of-pocket plan because they just don't want to pay it, NOT because they don't have the money. But that is what they tell people. "We don't have any work, and we will go out of business!" just like those that you interviewed. The businesses can afford it but don't want to... that is the bottom line.