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Mal Allison

HEALTH REFORM: Expect Pluses, Minuses for Those With Job-Based Coverage - iVillage - 0 views

www.ivillage.com/...4-a-547763

ACA employer-based insurance

shared by Mal Allison on 01 Oct 13 - No Cached
  • Beginning in 2014, for instance, the reform package prohibits employer-sponsored health plans from excluding people from coverage based on pre-existing health conditions
  • It also makes larger employers responsible for offering medical coverage. Beginning Jan. 1, 2015, businesses with more than 50 workers must offer health insurance to full-time workers and dependents or pay penalties.
  • annual limits will be banned completely in 2014.
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  • Also, if you have an adult child under age 26 and your employer health plan offers coverage for dependents, the plan must allow your son or daughter to enroll. Spiro called th
  • The law also requires most employer health plans to offer certain preventive services at no cost to the employee.
  • Effective Jan. 1, 2014, the law allows employers to boost rewards and penalties (such as premium discounts or surcharges) to 30 percent of the total plan premium, up from 20 percent.
  • ne in five employers has boosted employees' share of health plan premiums,
  • HealthCare Advocates, which helps consumers resolve health insurance problems. "I think at the end of the day, everybody's going to be paying more," he said.
  • e IFEBP survey also estimates that about 16 percent of employers are trimming worker hours to part-time status so fewer employees will qualify for health-plan benefits.
  • Beginning in 2015, large employers -- those with at least 50 full-time workers -- must provide health insurance to employees who log an average of 30 or more hours a week or pay penalties.
  • A study published earlier this year by the University of California, Berkeley Center for Labor Research and Education found that 2.3 million workers nationwide -- particularly retail and restaurant workers -- are at risk of losing hours as a result of the new law.
  • A growing number of midsize and large employers -- 25 percent in 2014 and 44 percent in 2015 -- are also saying they're likely to discontinue health coverage for Medicare-eligible retirees, a new Towers Watson & Co. survey found.
  • Starting in 2018, the law imposes a steep tax on employer plans with premiums exceeding $10,200 for an individual and $27,500 for a family -- plans that are typically offered to high-wage earner
  • About 17 percent of employers are redesigning their high-cost plans to avoid this so-called "Cadillac tax," while 40 percent are considering i
  • The percentage of Americans receiving health insurance on the job or through a family member's job slipped from 69.7 percent in 2000 to 59.5 percent in 2011,
  • Staggering increases in health insurance premiums also contributed to the decline, resulting in fewer employers offering coverage and fewer employees accepting it.
  • Congressional Budget Office estimates suggest that as many as 7 million people will lose job-based coverage by 2017 a
  • But just 26 percent are confident that they will be offering health-care benefits a decade from no
  • r Center, has summarized provisions of the Affordable Care Act affecting employer-sponsored insurance.
  • To read part one of the series, how to navigate the new health insurance exchanges, click here.
  • Mal Allison on 01 Oct 13
     
    Experts say smaller companies that employ 50 or more workers and currently provide health insurance may drop coverage because it would be cheaper to pay fines than maintain coverage for all of their workers. Most large employers (with more than 1,000 employees) remain committed to providing health benefits for the next five years, according to an employer survey by Towers Watson/National Business Group on Health. But just 26 percent are confident that they will be offering health-care benefits a decade from now. Meanwhile, a number of large employers are eyeing private health insurance exchanges as a way to continue providing job-based coverage while controlling spending on health benefits. Much like the public exchanges under the Affordable Care Act, private exchanges represent a new way for employees and families to shop for group health coverage and other benefits. Instead of offering a limited number of health plans, the employer would give workers a set amount of money to buy their own coverage. Kaiser, who works in Gallagher Benefit Services' Mount Laurel, N.J., office, anticipates a slow migration toward private exchanges. "I don't think it's going to be a mass disruption of employer-sponsored plans where they all go, 'I'm out of the game,'" he said. More information The University of California, Berkeley Labor Center, has summarized provisions of the Affordable Care Act affecting employer-sponsored insurance.
Mal Allison

Health Care Policy and Marketplace Review: Administration Delays the Employer Mandate--... - 0 views

healthpolicyandmarket.blogspot.com/...istration-delays-employer.html

employer mandate small business ACA

shared by Mal Allison on 03 Jul 13 - No Cached
  • These small group requirements are expected to increase the cost of small group coverage by an average of 15%––with wide variation by state and the average age of the group.
  • Why not do the same for small employers as well? And while they are at it, use the time to reconsider the impact many of these regulations are likely to have on the number of small employers continuing to offer coverage
Mal Allison

More Employers Overhaul Health Benefits - WSJ.com - 0 views

online.wsj.com/...4906304579038661121699366.html

employers health private exchange

shared by Mal Allison on 04 Sep 13 - No Cached
  • Operators of employer health-insurance marketplaces say many workers pick cheaper coverage than they previously had and that is one way the exchange approach can save money.
  • In an exchange run by Liazon Corp. that has around 60,000 people enrolled, about 75% of the workers have chosen less-expensive plans, accepting bigger deductibles and other out-of-pocket charges, as well as smaller choices of health-care providers and restrictions such as primary-care gatekeepers. "They want value for their money," said Alan Cohen, Liazon's chief strategy officer.
  • Accenture ACN +0.08% PLC projects that around a million Americans will get employer health coverage through such marketplaces next year, and the number will increase to 40 million by 2018.
  • Mal Allison on 04 Sep 13
     
    Operators of employer health-insurance marketplaces say many workers pick cheaper coverage than they previously had and that is one way the exchange approach can save money.
Mal Allison

Employers Turn to Private Health Exchanges to Cut Costs - Bloomberg - 0 views

www.bloomberg.com/...lth-exchange-to-cut-costs.html

employers exchanges private

shared by Mal Allison on 19 Feb 14 - No Cached
  • One-third of U.S. employers plan to move their workers’ health-care coverage to a private exchange in the next few years, a survey found, following the le
  • Health spending in the U.S. is expected to increase more than 6 percent this year and 6.2 percent annually from 2015-2022 as the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act takes full effect and millions of Americans gain insurance, according to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
  • Under Obamacare, companies that don’t offer coverage for their employees will be fined $2,000 per employee. Employers spend $6,000 per employee on average, so d
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  • They found that 5 percent of the companies surveyed may drop employee health-care coverage in the next three to five years, an increase from 1 percent now
  • About 38 percent of the companies surveyed by Aon said they would offer no benefits to part-time workers within the next three to five years.
  • Only 25 percent of large employers offer subsidized retiree health benefits, Aon said, down from about 50 percent in 2004.
Mal Allison

Bare Bones Health Plans Expected To Survive Health Law - Kaiser Health News - 0 views

www.kaiserhealthnews.org/...alth-insurance-health-law.aspx

bare bones health plans mini med ACA

shared by Mal Allison on 26 Aug 13 - No Cached
  • Proposed and final rules issued this spring surprised many by failing to bar large employers from offering insurance policies that could exclude benefits such as hospitalization. Offering bare-bones policies may result in some fines, but that expense could be less than the cost of offering traditional medical coverage. For large employers, "the feds imposed no minimum standard on how skimpy that coverage can be other than to say, in essence, it's got to be more robust than a dental plan or a vision plan," said Ed Fensholt, a senior vice president at insurance broker Lockton Companies. "We had customers looking at offering some relatively inexpensive and skimpy plan designs to satisfy the individual mandate at modest cost.”
  • The bare-bones plans cannot be offered to small businesses with fewer than 50 workers, or to individuals buying coverage through new online marketplaces that open for enrollment Oct. 1. But benefit experts expect some larger firms that buy outside the marketplaces or that self-insure to consider them. 
  • Skimpy insurance under the Affordable Care Act won’t be quite the same as it is now. Under the new rules, capping the dollar value of annual benefits isn't allowed, but excluding entire categories from coverage - such as hospital stays - is permitted, say benefit consultants. That's another way of keeping costs down.
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  • he law says only that large-employer policies must cover preventive care such as blood pressure tests or vaccines with no co-pays for consumers. So the plan could cover dental, vision and preventive cancer screenings, but possibly not the treatment or hospital care a patient could need if diagnosed with an illness.
  • rue, the health act requires policies to include coverage for 10 broad categories of “essential health benefits,” such as hospitalization and mental health services, but that provision applies only to plans sold to small businesses and individuals.  Larger firms and self-insured employers are exempt.
  • .” Employers offering these sorts of plans do face some risks, experts said. If a large employer doesn’t offer “minimum essential coverage,” it’s potentially liable for fines of $2,000 per full-time worker after the first 30 workers.
  • they must pay $3,000 for each worker who receives subsidies to buy coverage.
Mal Allison

Why employers are shifting retiree health into insurance exchanges | Reuters - 0 views

www.reuters.com/...tirement-idUSBREA2A1D620140311

employers health insurance exchanges retirees

shared by Mal Allison on 12 Mar 14 - No Cached
  • Thirty percent of companies that provide coverage to Medicare-eligible retirees (age 65 and over) already have moved to exchanges, according to an Aon Hewitt survey of more than 1,230 employers released last month.
  • For Medicare-eligible retirees, employer benefits are supplemental. Retirees who use traditional fee-for-service Medicare might be offered a Part D (prescription drug) benefit, and a subsidized Medigap plan, which plugs coverage gaps in fee-for-service Medicare. Retirees using Medicare Advantage (all-in-one managed care plans) receive a subsidy toward buying those plans.
  • oving to exchanges also can help employers avoid the looming risk of the so-called Cadillac tax on rich-benefit insurance plans.
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  • hey'll need it. A 2012 study of Part D enrollment data by researchers at the University of Pittsburgh found that seniors waste hundreds of dollars annually by purchasing levels of coverage that they do not actually need. Just 5 percent picked the most cost-effective plan, and more than 30 percent overspent by $3
Mal Allison

Data mining helps manage employer health care risks - Articles - Employee Benefit News - 0 views

ebn.benefitnews.com/...alth-care-risks-2734952-1.html

data mining population management

shared by Mal Allison on 21 Aug 13 - No Cached
  • And all of this translates to a healthier bottom line. According to the consulting firm Aon Hewitt, population health management can help employers save as much as $700 per employee per year when they focus on any three of these eight major health care behaviors, which contribute to 80% of the cases of chronic illness: poor diet, physical inactivity, smoking, lack of health screening, poor standard of care, insufficient sleep, excess alcohol intake and poor stress management.
  • Mal Allison on 21 Aug 13
     
    And all of this translates to a healthier bottom line. According to the consulting firm Aon Hewitt, population health management can help employers save as much as $700 per employee per year when they focus on any three of these eight major health care behaviors, which contribute to 80% of the cases of chronic illness: poor diet, physical inactivity, smoking, lack of health screening, poor standard of care, insufficient sleep, excess alcohol intake and poor stress management.
Mal Allison

Business Boondoggle: Shedding the Cost of Health Care | The Fiscal Times - 0 views

www.thefiscaltimes.com/...ggle-Shedding-Cost-Health-Care

business portability true cost of insurance

shared by Mal Allison on 19 Sep 13 - No Cached
  • he actions of these other employers don’t detract from the unique nature of Walgreens’ decision. Two months earlier, the retailer announced its partnership with the Department of Health and Human Services to extol the benefits of Obamacare to its employees and its customers. Their website still features the effort, and brochures continue to be distributed even while the corporation itself realizes that compliance must force it to abandon employer-provided health insurance for the people in the stores distributing the brochures to customers.
  • With the CBO predicting that rising health-care costs would increase at twice the rate of other federal spending, the same increase in costs will now be borne almost entirely by employees.  Finally, it appears that the private-exchange option will satisfy the employer mandate, which means that the employees cannot bail out of these private exchanges in order to qualify for federal subsidies, which prevents the employers from having to pay increasing fines for non-compliance.
  • limit the liability of the third-party payer.
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  • s opposed to the Independent Payment Advisory Board and its “death panel”-like power. 
  • nce, and now employees will get more than just one or two options at open enrollment, with twenty-five plans available in the Aon exchange.
  • This arrangement makes the consumer the customer of the exchanges from the very beginning.  A termination would only impact the subsidy, which the consumer/employee could negotiate as part of his compensation package with his next employer. 
  • is to restore price signals on health care back to the consumer through the elimination of third-party payers and middlemen. 
Mal Allison

Employers: Don t answer employee exchange questions - Articles - Employee Benefit News - 0 views

ebn.benefitnews.com/...hange-questions-2736717-1.html

employers exchanges rules

shared by Mal Allison on 04 Oct 13 - No Cached
  • An employee who worked 1,800 hours over the course of the measurement period would average 34.6 hours per week, and would thus be eligible for coverage.  The “administrative period,” which can be up to 90 days, is the period where you enroll these eligible employees. The “stability period,” which has to be at least as long as the measurement period, defines how long they will have coverage.
  • Just remember that, starting in 2015, employees always have to be in a stability period for full compliance. So employers should not wait until October of next year to start planning.  Even though the mandate is delayed, employers still have to prepare.
Mal Allison

Hospital, providers to develop state's only member-owned health plan - Health & wellnes... - 0 views

www.bostonglobe.com/...story.html

member-owned insurance Tufts Medical Center minuteman Health Initiative

shared by Mal Allison on 15 Jul 13 - No Cached
  • The Minuteman plan would streamline billing processes to save on administrative costs and allow providers to work more closely with employers, organizers said. Information about smoking cessation or workers’ weight collected through employer wellness programs is not typically shared with doctors. “Imagine working closely with an employer who can help us gather data and, with employees’ permission, to be able to share that data with their primary care providers,” said Dr. Jeff Lasker, chief executive of the Tufts physician group, New England Quality Care Alliance.
  • Partners HealthCare last year announced plans to acquire Neighborhood Health Plan, which mostly serves low-income people. Steward Health Care has worked with Fallon Community Health Plan to develop plans offered at reduced prices through a small business cooperative created by the Retailers Association of Massachusetts.
Mal Allison

Union Leaders Seek Changes to Affordable Care Act - WSJ.com - 0 views

online.wsj.com/...4694904578602202857109898.html

union leaders ACA changes subsidies multi-employer plans

shared by Mal Allison on 15 Jul 13 - No Cached
  • making unionized workers less competitive and potentially causing unionized employers to drop the plans that cover more than 20 million people.
  • To offset the expected rising costs of these "multiemployer" plans, several union groups want their lower-paid members to be able to remain on the plans wh
  • "will shatter not only our hard-earned health benefits, but destroy the foundation of the 40 hour work week that is the backbone of the American middle class," the union officials wrote.
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  • Unions argue that several other parts of the health-care law would disadvantage "multiemployer" health plans administered by unions and employers. For instance, the law's lack of penalties for employers with less than 50 employees could force companies to drop insurance in heavily unionized sectors like construction, unions argue. In general, unions say the health plan's impact on multiemployer plans needs to be clarified.
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