Employers Offer Workers Fewer Health Care Plans; "a financially daunting...high annual deductible"

[DeepModem Mom]

NYT: Employers Offer Workers Fewer Health Care Plans
By MILT FREUDENHEIM
Published: November 14, 2008

It’s the annual “open enrollment” season in corporate America, when employees choose their medical plans for the coming year.

But this time, even if they are fortunate enough to have a job at a company that still offers health benefits, many workers are finding that the buffet of options has been trimmed to a very short menu. And typically the offerings now include a health plan with a financially daunting feature: a high annual deductible that is likely to be $1,100 or more for an individual, and much higher for family coverage. Under conventional insurance, the annual deductible — the amount an employee is obliged to spend on medical care before the insurance begins — may be only about one-third as high.

Employers generally try to offset the high deductible with a somewhat lower monthly premium than workers pay with conventional insurance. Another deal sweetener is the opportunity for the worker to put money in a tax-sheltered health savings account whose balance can grow year after year. Many employers also make contributions to those worker accounts. Despite such lures, high-deductible plans have received only tepid acceptance from employees since they were introduced in 2002. But this year, at more than 100 large companies and hundreds of smaller ones, the high-deductible plans are the employee’s single take-it-or-leave-it option....

***

As a cost-saving measure for employers, the high deductibles are meant to make workers think hard before spending out-of-pocket cash on doctors, emergency room visits and expensive diagnostic tests.

President Bush has advocated the plans as a “consumer-directed” way to rein in health care spending. Under President-elect Barack Obama, the plans may not have a White House advocate. A spokesman for Mr. Obama’s transition team declined to comment on the issue. But one Obama adviser, who was not authorized to speak publicly for Mr. Obama, said medical benefits that shift costs to employees would not be consistent with Mr. Obama’s position on health care....

Because the health plans currently on offer were devised early this year, long before the full magnitude of the financial market meltdown and global recession were evident, experts predict that benefit offerings a year from now during sign-up season could demand that employees dig even deeper into their own pockets....

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/15/business/15insure.html?pagewanted=all

[SharonAnn]

1. So now maybe some of the GM retirees who live here will understand

the issues of the rest of the country. They are very, very right-wing Republicans and their attitude is that they got theirs and "F" everybody else. One ex management retiree told me that if other people wanted the same kind of coverage he had, that they should've worked at GM.

And,of course, there is absolutely no recognition that their benefits are so good because the labor unions raised the floor for all the employees.

Ah well, perhaps they'll finally understand. Then again, perhaps they won't.

I can't wait until the first one complains in front of me.

[Romulox]

3. So you're punishing GM retirees for your own lack of healthcare?

How in holy fuck are GM retirees in charge of what sort of healthcare you recieve???

"They are very, very right-wing Republicans and their attitude is that they got theirs and "F" everybody else."

Sounds like you'd get along just famously then. :eyes:

[exboyfil]

2. Salaried got the high deductible unions got to keep the copay plan

My employer changed us to a high deductible only plan about two years ago with UHC. My employer says the plan costs about $12K/yr which is close to the same price paid by the Federal plan with UHC (you know the same insurance the Senator's get) so I have no reason to doubt them.

I am a pretty well compensated employee with my company, and this represents 14% of my salary when I get historically high bonuses and 16% with a more modest bonus. The union plan is at least 20% of their salary.

The Germans cover almost their entire population at 15% salary. We spend about 24% of our salary on health care right now (both public and private).

The key is figuring out how the Germans do it and adopting their practices in our health care system. Some immediate suggestions I would make would be monoposy negotiation with the drug companies for the absolute lowest prices available, tort reforms that eliminate jack pot settlements for malpractice, single payer negotiation with medical suppliers for the lowest prices (ie reflecting the same prices paid in Germany for comparable services). Of course each of these may have down sides (potential freezing of drug development, reduced compensation for medical malpractice, layoffs in drug and insurance companies, reduced compensation for health care providers, and availability of health care providers - both from providers exiting due to lowered compensation as well as additional demands on the system).

We need more domestically produced GPs and nurses to handle the additional demands of universal health care so many of the individuals from the impacted industries could be retrained??

Since Canada gets ultralow drug prices through PMPRB, does anyone know how much of the per capita spending difference between the U.S. and Canada is due to their negotiating much better prices? I say let the free ride end. Our price negotiators should have the PMPRB schedule in hand when they sit down with the drug companies.

[bertman]

4. I'm the co-owner of a small general contracting firm. We have a group policy for our 15 employees

that has a relatively high deductible. The company pays half the costs of the policy for the worker, and he/she can choose to pay for his/her dependents.

The policy we have is a good one and everyone seems satisfied with their policy.

This year (October) when it came time to do the annual policy renewals, our office manager got a quote from the company for the policy renewals.

FORTY-TWO PERCENT INCREASE IN THE COST OVER LAST YEAR.

We almost fell out. Our office manager called the company rep who said that costs had gone up and that was the amount we owed. So, she got on the phone with our insurance rep (who steered us toward that company several years ago) and told her we were going "shopping" for medical coverage. The next day we got a call from the medical insurance company rep explaining that THEY HAD MADE A MISTAKE CALCULATING OUR PREMIUMS. So, the new pricing was only 18% higher than the previous year's premium.

Had we gone along with their original quote there is no doubt in my mind that the "mistake" would never have been found. Anyone who thinks the rising medical costs are due soley to increases in equipment cost, meds, salaries, etc. needs to think again.

Can you say GREED???