Download or read book Employers Workers and the Future of Employment Based Health Benefits written by Stephen Blakely and published by . This book was released on 2010 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This paper summarizes presentations at EBRI's 65th biannual policy forum, held in Washington, DC, on Dec. 10, 2009, on the topic, “Employers, Workers, and the Future of Employment-Based Health Benefits.” The forum brought together a wide range of economic, benefits, management, and labor experts to share their expertise at a time when major health reform legislation was being debated in Congress. The focus: How might this affect the way that the vast majority of Americans currently get their health insurance coverage? Most people who have health insurance coverage in the United States get it through their job: In 2008, about 61 percent of the nonelderly population had employment-based health benefits, 19 percent were covered by public programs, 6 percent had individual coverage, and 17 percent were uninsured. One point of consensus among both labor and management representatives: Imposing a tax on health benefits is likely to cause major cuts in health benefits and might result in structural changes in the employment-based benefits system. A common disappointment voiced at the forum was that the initial effort to reform the delivery and cost of health care in America gradually became focused on just financing and coverage of health insurance. The ever-rising cost of health insurance affects different employers and workers in different ways--with small employers and low-wage workers being the most disadvantaged. Small employers, if they offer health benefits at all, pay proportionately more than large employers for the same health coverage. While large employers tend to express continued commitment to health benefits, small employers see themselves strongly disadvantaged by the current system. Consultants report many employers privately want to drop benefits to control costs, but realize there are risks to doing so and none wants to be first. Employers express strong interest in wellness and disease management programs as a way to control costs, even though some experts say there is no evidence these work. Consumer-driven health plans are expected to continue their slow rate of growth.

Download or read book What Does the Future Hold for the Employment Based Health Benefits System written by Paul Fronstin and published by . This book was released on 2019 with total page 21 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: • The employment-based he ...

Download or read book Employment Based Health Benefits written by Paul Fronstin and published by . This book was released on 2015 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The employment-based health benefits system established its roots many years ago. It was during World War II that many more employers began to offer health benefits. Recently, however, both the percentage of workers with employment-based health benefits and the comprehensiveness of such coverage have been declining. This paper examines recent trends in employment-based health benefits. It also considers the likely future of this important workplace benefit in light of shifts from defined benefit to defined contribution models of employee benefits and with regard to the implementation of health reform.

Download or read book Employment and Health Benefits written by Institute of Medicine and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 1993-02-01 with total page 381 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The United States is unique among economically advanced nations in its reliance on employers to provide health benefits voluntarily for workers and their families. Although it is well known that this system fails to reach millions of these individuals as well as others who have no connection to the work place, the system has other weaknesses. It also has many advantages. Because most proposals for health care reform assume some continued role for employers, this book makes an important contribution by describing the strength and limitations of the current system of employment-based health benefits. It provides the data and analysis needed to understand the historical, social, and economic dynamics that have shaped present-day arrangements and outlines what might be done to overcome some of the access, value, and equity problems associated with current employer, insurer, and government policies and practices. Health insurance terminology is often perplexing, and this volume defines essential concepts clearly and carefully. Using an array of primary sources, it provides a store of information on who is covered for what services at what costs, on how programs vary by employer size and industry, and on what governments doâ€"and do not doâ€"to oversee employment-based health programs. A case study adapted from real organizations' experiences illustrates some of the practical challenges in designing, managing, and revising benefit programs. The sometimes unintended and unwanted consequences of employer practices for workers and health care providers are explored. Understanding the concepts of risk, biased risk selection, and risk segmentation is fundamental to sound health care reform. This volume thoroughly examines these key concepts and how they complicate efforts to achieve efficiency and equity in health coverage and health care. With health care reform at the forefront of public attention, this volume will be important to policymakers and regulators, employee benefit managers and other executives, trade associations, and decisionmakers in the health insurance industry, as well as analysts, researchers, and students of health policy.

Download or read book The End of Employer Provided Health Insurance written by Paul Zane Pilzer and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2014-11-17 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How to save 20 to 60 percent on health insurance! The End of Employer-Provided Health Insurance is a comprehensive guide to utilizing new individual health plans to save 20 to 60 percent on health insurance. This book is written to ensure that you, your family, and your company get your fair share of the trillions of dollars the U.S. government will spend subsidizing individual health insurance plans between now and 2025. You will learn how to navigate the Affordable Care Act to save money without sacrificing coverage, and how to choose the plan that offers exactly what you, your family and your company need. Over the next 10 years, 100 million Americans will move from employer-provided to individually purchased health insurance. The purpose of The End of Employer-Provided Health Insurance is to show you how to profit from this paradigm shift while helping you, your family, and your employees get better and safer health insurance at lower cost. It will help you save thousands of dollars per person each year and protect you from the greatest threat to your financial future—our nation's broken employer-provided health insurance system. We are at the beginning of a paradigm shift in the way businesses offer employee health benefits and the way Americans get health insurance—a shift from an employer-driven defined benefit model to an individual-driven defined contribution model. This parallels a similar shift in employer-provided retirement benefits that took place two to three decades ago from defined benefit to defined contribution retirement plans. Written by a world-renowned economist and New York Times best-selling author, this insightful guide explains how individual health insurance offers more to employees than employer-provided plans. Using the techniques outlined in this book, you and your employer will save money on health insurance by migrating from employer-provided health insurance coverage to employer-funded individual plans at a total cost that is 20 percent to 60 percent lower for the same coverage. That's $4,000 to $12,000 in savings per year for a family of four for the same hospitals, same doctors, and same prescriptions.

Download or read book The Future of the Public s Health in the 21st Century written by Institute of Medicine and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2003-02-01 with total page 536 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The anthrax incidents following the 9/11 terrorist attacks put the spotlight on the nation's public health agencies, placing it under an unprecedented scrutiny that added new dimensions to the complex issues considered in this report. The Future of the Public's Health in the 21st Century reaffirms the vision of Healthy People 2010, and outlines a systems approach to assuring the nation's health in practice, research, and policy. This approach focuses on joining the unique resources and perspectives of diverse sectors and entities and challenges these groups to work in a concerted, strategic way to promote and protect the public's health. Focusing on diverse partnerships as the framework for public health, the book discusses: The need for a shift from an individual to a population-based approach in practice, research, policy, and community engagement. The status of the governmental public health infrastructure and what needs to be improved, including its interface with the health care delivery system. The roles nongovernment actors, such as academia, business, local communities and the media can play in creating a healthy nation. Providing an accessible analysis, this book will be important to public health policy-makers and practitioners, business and community leaders, health advocates, educators and journalists.

Download or read book Employment Based Health Benefits written by Paul Fronstin and published by . This book was released on 2012 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Employment-based health benefits are the most common form of health insurance in the United States. The purpose of this paper is to examine the state of employment-based health benefits among workers with respect to offer rates, coverage rates, and take-up rates. It also examines how the state of employment-based health benefits has changed since the mid-1990s, reasons why workers do not have employment-based health benefits from their own employers, and how these reasons have changed since the 1990s. Both the offer rate (the percentage of workers offered a health benefit) and the coverage rate for employment-based health benefits declined between 1997 and 2010. Between 1997 and 2010, the percentage of workers offered health benefits from their employers decreased from 70.1 percent to 67.5 percent, and the percentage of workers covered by those plans decreased from 60.3 percent to 56.5 percent. The take-up rate (the percentage of workers taking coverage when offered by their employers) declined from 86 percent in 1997 to 83.6 percent in 2010. In 2010, 58.7 percent of nonelderly individuals were covered by employment-based health plans, with 68.6 percent of working adults covered, 35.3 percent of non-working adults covered, and 54.8 percent of children covered. The percentage of the population with employment-based health benefits has been declining, most recently due to the 2007-2009 recession. The percentage of individuals under age 65 with employment-based health benefits fell from 62.4 percent in 2008 to 58.7 percent in 2010, and the percentage of workers with coverage through their own employers fell from 54.2 percent in 2007 to 51.5 percent in 2010, its lowest level since 1994. In 2010, 46.7 percent of wage and salary workers ages 18-64 reported that they worked for employers that did not offer health benefits. Another 14.7 percent worked for employers that provided health benefits but were not eligible for those benefits. Among workers who were not eligible for their employers' health plans, 38.7 percent were uninsured in 2010, and 41.1 percent had employment-based health benefits as dependents. Two-thirds of workers not eligible for their employers' health plans reported that they worked part time in 2010, up from one-half in 1997. In 2010, one-quarter of workers reported that they were offered health benefits but they chose not to participate. Between 1997 and 2010, the percentage of workers who declined coverage because of cost increased from 23.2 percent to 29.1 percent. In 2010, two-thirds reported that they declined coverage because they had other coverage, down from 78.9 percent in 1997. The estimates presented in this paper can also serve as a baseline against which to measure the impact of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 (PPACA) on employment-based health benefits in the future.

Download or read book A Look at Health Benefits and the Workforce written by and published by . This book was released on 1992 with total page 48 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Future of Employment Based Health Benefits written by Paul Fronstin and published by . This book was released on 2009 with total page 20 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This paper examines the notion that employers have reached a tipping point over health costs and will cease offering health care benefits to their workers. In the end, an evaluation of recent data does not suggest that the end of employment-based health benefits is upon us. However, the message from some associations representing employers is that the existing employment-based system must be reformed because the status quo is unsustainable. Some individual employers, including leaders in the field, appear to share this new vision. However, many individual employers believe that there is a business case for offering health benefits to their workers, and they continue to invest substantial amounts of money in their health programs. They also tend to agree that if one major employer were to drop health benefits, others would follow. And they tend to agree that public policy changes, such as the erosion or elimination of ERISA (federal) pre-emption of state insurance regulation, could mean the end of voluntary employment-based health benefits.The first section of this report examines recent trends in health benefits. It then discusses whether employers have reached a tipping point with health benefits. This is followed by a discussion of what is driving employers to a tipping point with respect to retiree health benefits.

Download or read book Care Without Coverage written by Institute of Medicine and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2002-06-20 with total page 213 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Many Americans believe that people who lack health insurance somehow get the care they really need. Care Without Coverage examines the real consequences for adults who lack health insurance. The study presents findings in the areas of prevention and screening, cancer, chronic illness, hospital-based care, and general health status. The committee looked at the consequences of being uninsured for people suffering from cancer, diabetes, HIV infection and AIDS, heart and kidney disease, mental illness, traumatic injuries, and heart attacks. It focused on the roughly 30 million-one in seven-working-age Americans without health insurance. This group does not include the population over 65 that is covered by Medicare or the nearly 10 million children who are uninsured in this country. The main findings of the report are that working-age Americans without health insurance are more likely to receive too little medical care and receive it too late; be sicker and die sooner; and receive poorer care when they are in the hospital, even for acute situations like a motor vehicle crash.

Download or read book Public Opinion on the Future of Employment Based Health Benefits written by Paul Fronstin and published by . This book was released on 2011 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This paper examines public opinion surrounding the future of employment-based health coverage. Data come from the EBRI/MGA 2011 Health Confidence Survey (HCS), a survey that examines a broad spectrum of health care issues, including Americans' satisfaction with health care today, their confidence in the future of the health care system and the Medicare program, and their attitudes toward health care reform. Enactment of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) of 2010 has raised many questions about whether employers will continue to offer health coverage in the future. In 2014, state-based health insurance exchanges will be available to individuals without employment-based coverage. These exchanges change the playing field in that workers will no longer need to rely on their employer to obtain health coverage. Workers will benefit from a number of insurance market reforms, such as guaranteed issue, modified community rating, subsidies, and increased choice of health plan. Over the long-term, public confidence that employers and unions will continue to offer health coverage has fallen. In 2011, 57 percent of individuals with employment-based coverage were extremely or very confident that their employer or union would continue to offer health coverage, down from 68 percent in 2000. Most of the erosion in confidence occurred between 2000 and 2002. Individuals have a low level of confidence that they can afford to purchase health coverage on their own even if their employer or union gave them the money to do so. In 2011, 20 percent were extremely or very confident that they could afford to purchase coverage; 30 percent were somewhat confident; and 48 percent were not too or not at all confident. According to the 2011 HCS, individual confidence in one's ability to compare different plan options and choose the best plan is neither high nor low. When it comes to confidence levels in an objective rating system being able to help an individual choose the best available plan, again, most people are somewhere in the middle. The vast majority of the population, 62 percent, reported that they were not at all familiar with health insurance exchanges, a key provision in the health reform law of 2010 (PPACA). However, the public does have opinions about the oversight of them: A majority of the population is not confident in the ability of the federal or state governments to run the exchanges, and 42 percent are not confident in private insurers' ability to run them. The PDF for the above title, published in the November 2011 issue of EBRI Notes, also contains the fulltext of another November 2011 EBRI Notes article abstracted on SSRN: “How Do Financial Literacy and Financial Behavior Vary by State?”

Download or read book Coverage Matters written by Institute of Medicine and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2001-10-27 with total page 204 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Roughly 40 million Americans have no health insurance, private or public, and the number has grown steadily over the past 25 years. Who are these children, women, and men, and why do they lack coverage for essential health care services? How does the system of insurance coverage in the U.S. operate, and where does it fail? The first of six Institute of Medicine reports that will examine in detail the consequences of having a large uninsured population, Coverage Matters: Insurance and Health Care, explores the myths and realities of who is uninsured, identifies social, economic, and policy factors that contribute to the situation, and describes the likelihood faced by members of various population groups of being uninsured. It serves as a guide to a broad range of issues related to the lack of insurance coverage in America and provides background data of use to policy makers and health services researchers.

Download or read book Variation in Public Opinion on the Future of Employment Based Health Benefits written by Paul Fronstin and published by . This book was released on 2011 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This paper examines current public opinion surrounding the future of employment-based health coverage and how it varies by demographics, health status, and selected questions on satisfaction with health care and ratings of the health care system in the United States. The public is in large part confident that employers and unions will continue to offer health coverage following enactment of the federal health reform law. In 2011, 57 percent of individuals with employment-based coverage were extremely or very confident that their employer or union would continue to offer health coverage. However, they are not confident that they could afford to purchase coverage on their own even if they were given the money by plan sponsors. In 2011, 20 percent were extremely or very confident that they could afford to purchase coverage. When it comes to picking a health plan, the majority of the population is very or somewhat confident in their ability to compare different plan options and choose the best plan, while nearly 1 in 5 are extremely confident or not confident that they could compare different plans and choose the best plan. Individuals who are most confident in the future availability of employment-based health benefits and in their ability to afford and choose the best plan are those who are more educated, have higher income, are more satisfied with their health coverage, and rate the U.S. health care system higher. Despite the low confidence levels that they could afford to purchase coverage, very few individuals reported that they are not likely to purchase coverage if employers and unions stopped offering it. The data come from the EBRI/MGA 2011 Health Confidence Survey (HCS), which examines a broad spectrum of health care issues, including Americans' satisfaction with health care today, their confidence in the future of the health care system and the Medicare program, and their attitudes toward health care reform. The PDF for the above title, published in the December 2011 issue of EBRI Notes, also contains the fulltext of another December 2011 EBRI Notes article abstracted on SSRN: “Retirement Age Expectations of Older Americans Between 2006 and 2010.”

Download or read book Employment Based Health Benefits written by Paul Fronstin and published by . This book was released on 2003 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This Issue Brief discusses recent trends in and the future of employment-based health insurance benefits. The paper explores recent trends in the percentage of the population with and without health benefits, the make-up of the benefits package, and retiree health benefits. The paper finds that despite rising health insurance costs, employers increasingly have been offering health benefits to workers, and the percentage covered by employment-based health benefits has been increasing. Also, while health insurance cost inflation has been increasing, the proportion of the premium paid by employees has not been increasing, and the benefits package has been improving. Retiree health benefits, however, have seen changes in which retirees are asked to pay a greater share of the cost of coverage. The paper also examines the drivers of these trends, such as health benefit cost increases and labor market conditions and discusses the outlook for health benefits, in light of the slowing economy, the enduring problem of uninsurance, impending public policy changes, and the emergence of defined contribution health benefits. The document has 2 tables and 23 charts.

Download or read book The Impact of the Recession on Employment Based Health Benefits written by Paul Fronstin and published by . This book was released on 2011 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This paper examines the relationship between health benefits and union status and the impact of the recent recession on that relationship. Since union workers account for a declining share of the working population in the private sector, further erosion of unionization is likely to coincide with overall erosion in the percentage of workers with employment-based health benefits, despite the fact that union workers are more likely than nonunion workers to have health coverage through their job. Furthermore, any future decline in the size of the public sector that is unionized, or declines in the public sector in general in response to lower tax revenues, will only exacerbate the overall erosion in the percentage of workers with employment-based health benefits. Union workers are much more likely to have employment-based health benefits than nonunion workers. In 2009, 80.4 percent of union workers were covered by health benefits through their own job, compared with 52.2 percent of nonunion workers. Overall, 91 percent of union workers had coverage either through their own job or as a dependent, while 70.6 percent of nonunion workers had any employment-based coverage. In 2009, 5.6 percent did not have any health insurance coverage. Among nonunion workers, 20.2 percent were uninsured in 2009. Both union workers and nonunion workers were affected by the recession, but it affected nonunion workers more than union workers. Union workers covered through their own job fell from 82 percent to 80.4 percent between 2007 and 2009, a 2 percent decline. In contrast, the percentage of nonunion workers with coverage through their own job fell from 55.9 percent to 52.2 percent, a 6.5 percent decline. Overall, the percentage of union workers with any employment-based coverage fell from 93.4 percent to 91 percent (a 2.6 percent decline), while among nonunion workers it fell from 74.3 percent to 70.6 percent (a 5 percent decline). Differences in reasons for being uninsured are also examined for union and nonunion workers. The analysis ends with a discussion of trends in premiums. The PDF for the above title, published in the July 2011 issue of EBRI Notes, also contains the fulltext of another July 2011 EBRI Notes article abstracted on SSRN: “Capping Tax-Preferred Retirement Contributions: Preliminary Evidence of the Impact of the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform Recommendations.”

Download or read book Views on Employment Based Health Benefits written by Paul Fronstin and published by . This book was released on 2013 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This paper examines public opinion surrounding employment-based health coverage. Data come from the Employee Benefit Research Institute and Mathew Greenwald & Associates, Inc. 2012 Health Confidence Survey (HCS), which examines a broad spectrum of health care issues, including Americans' satisfaction with health care, confidence in the future of the nation's health care system and the Medicare program, as well as their attitudes toward certain aspects of health care reform. Earlier waves of the HCS are examined, as well. Enactment of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) has raised questions about whether employers will continue to offer health coverage to their workers in the future. Yet the importance of benefits as a criterion in choosing a job remains high, and health insurance in particular continues to be, by far, the most important employee benefit to workers. The 2012 EBRI/MGA Health Confidence Survey (HCS) finds most Americans are satisfied with the health benefits they have now and prefer not to change the mix of benefits and wages. Three-quarters (73 percent) report that they are satisfied with the health benefits they currently receive while 15 percent say they would trade wages to get more health benefits, and 9 percent say they would surrender health benefits for higher wages. Choice of health plans is important to workers, and they would like more choices, but most workers expressed confidence that their employers or unions have selected the best available health plan. Moreover, they are not as confident in their ability to choose the best available plan if their employers or unions did, in fact, stop offering coverage. Furthermore, individuals are not highly comfortable that they could use an objective rating system to choose health insurance nor are they extremely confident that a rating system could help them choose the best health insurance; considerations that will be useful as employers consider whether to continue offering coverage, and if they do, which options to offer in the plan. If current tax preferences were to change, and employment-based coverage became taxable, 39 percent of individuals say they would continue with their current level of coverage, compared with 29 percent who indicated that preference in 2011. The PDF for the above title, published in the December 2012 issue of EBRI Notes, also contains the fulltext of another December 2012 EBRI Notes article abstracted on SSRN: “Employee Tenure Trends, 1983-2012.”

Download or read book Views on Employment Based Health Benefits written by Paul Fronstin and published by . This book was released on 2013 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This paper examines public opinion surrounding employment-based health coverage. It uses data from the 2013 Health and Voluntary Workplace Benefits Survey (WBS), conducted by the Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI) and Greenwald & Associates, as well as historical data from the Health Confidence Survey (HCS). Both surveys examine a broad spectrum of health care issues, including workers' satisfaction with health care today, their confidence in the future of the nation's health care system and the Medicare program, as well as their attitudes toward workplace benefits. Enactment of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 (PPACA) has raised questions about whether employers will continue to offer health coverage to their workers in the future. Yet, the importance of benefits in choosing a job remains high, and health insurance in particular continues to be, by far, the most important employee benefit to workers. Most workers are satisfied with the health benefits they have now and express little interest in changing the current mix of benefits and wages offered by their employers. Three-quarters (74 percent) report that they are satisfied with the health benefits they currently receive, while 12 percent say they would trade wages to get more health benefits, and 14 percent say they would surrender some health benefits for higher wages. Fewer workers reported being satisfied with the mix of health benefits and wages when the same question was asked in 2004, although the percentage satisfied with the current mix is unchanged from 2012. If current tax preferences for employment-based health benefits were to change, and the benefits were to become taxable, 39 percent of individuals say they would continue with their current level of coverage, virtually unchanged from 40 percent in 2012 but up from 31 percent who indicated that preference in 2011. Despite expressing a desire for more choice of health plans, individuals are not highly comfortable that they could use an objective rating system, such as that provided by the health insurance exchanges, to choose health insurance, nor are they extremely confident that a rating system could help them choose the best health insurance. The PDF for the above title, published in the December 2013 issue of EBRI Notes, also contains the full text of another December 2013 EBRI Notes article abstracted on SSRN: “How Much Would it Take? Achieving Retirement Income Equivalency between Final-Average-Pay Defined Benefit Plan Accruals and Voluntary Enrollment 401(k) Plans in the Private Sector.”