OnSiteClinics.Org

Healthcare Costs Lower, Premiums Higher????

Well, various publications are confirming what all of you employers already knew, while actual health care expenditures (those for services) may be moderating, premiums for health insurance are still skyrocketing!   AHIP (America’s Health Insurance Plans association) spent millions last year trying to alter or stop altogether the provisions of the bill related to expanded insurance requirements and premium controls.  Why?  Because they want to continue their unprecedented and undocumented need for premium increases without oversight.   Check out these articles:

The LA Times’ article  (“Health Insurers May Have to Justify Large Premium Hikes”) provides a good overview of what the federal government is proposing – oversight and review of insurance carrier rate hikes above an initial threshhold of 10% annually, if the reviews are not done at the state level.  The article points out that some carriers had increased rates by more than 30% last year (Anthem BCBS of California among them) and that double-digit increases have been the norm for some time now.  Why?  Well, we can’t figure that out.

So, we say why stop there (the 10% threshhold) when data just released by S&P Healthcare Economic Composite Index shows that commercial claim costs rose just 8.21% over the year ending 10/31/2010 and believe it or not, costs for Medicare rose at only 4.18%? (Average costs increased 6.70%.)

So, while the public sector remains out of control, and the individual state and federal governments are trying to do something about it, employer managed health care plans don’t have to wait or wonder about what will happen next year to their costs – on-site services, consumer-driven health plans, wellness programs and disease management, centers of value, all these things are in place or being developed giving these employers the control they need over health care costs without the government getting involved.