Employer Strategies

Employers, on the whole, report seeing their health care costs continuing to rise – most suggest that costs will jump 19% between 2013 and 2014 alone.

Employers continue to see a rise in health insurance costs. Annual premiums for employer-sponsored family health coverage reached $16,351 in 2013, up 4% from last year, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation/Health Research & Educational Trust (HRET) 2013 Employer Health Benefits Survey. So how can employers work to control these costs? A key success factor in reducing health insurance costs is the leadership’s commitment to this strategy. Can you find top-down leadership commitment to a long-term program…

The 2013 Deloitte Employer Survey finds that many employers see the entire health care system as being expensive and wasteful, and indicate that they don’t believe the ACA will do much to help to change the situation.

The move comes in response to Republican lawmakers’ criticism of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act over the healthcare.gov website troubles and the cancellation notices sent to hundreds of thousands of current policy holders as a result of the law.

Time may not be on the side of carriers in their quest to set appropriate rates for 2015 if the 2014 enrollments take longer than expected because of further online technical delays, public apathy or both.

In the latest ACA delay announced Wednesday, HHS touts brokers as an alternative for small businesses to enroll

Sebelius cautioned that the “on” switch has not magically been flipped on, though “…the experience is vastly improved each and every day.”

The National Business Coalition on Health has developed ValuePort, an online benefits administration and strategy tool designed to help employers adopt value-based health strategies tailored to their populations.

The promise of 50,000 people being able to simultaneously use the site by Saturday – twice the capacity of last week – will be tested by congressional Republicans.

Towers Watson acquired Liazon Corporation, a leader in developing and delivering private benefit exchanges for active employees, last week. Representatives of the consultancy believe that this acquisition, which follows the purchase of Extend Health in June 2012, has solidified their position as the leading player in the private exchange market through its OneExchange solution.