Health Insurance Info

of the country are demonstrating that it is possible to cut health-coverage costs 30 to 40 percent. In short, health insurance isn’t as simple as it used to be. And the pace of change is accelerating, offering new hope for a truce in the business battle with exploding health-care costs. The next couple of years present as much potential for change as at any time in the past 20 years. You can be part of that change by putting at least some of the following 5 ideas to work for your company.

1) Increase Cost Sharing By Employees

This recommendation is at the top of every consultant’s list. Small companies tend to pay far more of their workers’ total health-care bill than large companies do. Yet research shows that insulating employees from the costs of care encourages unnecessary use of health services. Fifty-two percent of the companies responding to the Nation’s Business health survey said they pay 100 percent of their employees’ health-insurance premiums. But 45 percent said they intended to implement or increase employee contributions to these premiums. An equal number said they plan to increase employee deductibles. Insurance companies first attached 0 deductibles to major-medical plans in the early 1950s. But 40 percent of employers still set deductibles at 0 or less. Raising a 0 deductible to 0 would cut premium costs for single coverage by about 11 percent. A 0 deductible would cut costs by about one-fourth. A ,000 deductible