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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.
  • ...17 more annotations...
  • 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

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

Unions chafing at Obamacare provisions | Center for Public Integrity - 0 views

www.publicintegrity.org/...s-chafing-obamacare-provisions

unions obamacare Potter

shared by Mal Allison on 17 Sep 13 - No Cached
  • I’ve talked to union members who have not had a raise in years because of rising health care costs. They’ve been willing to forego wage increases at the bargaining table in exchange for keeping decent health insurance
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

Texas is curtailing health costs with own program | www.statesman.com - 0 views

www.statesman.com/...nZft7

texas health costs ACA MEdicaid working poor

shared by Mal Allison on 29 Aug 13 - No Cached
  • Doctors complain, though, that the savings comes from cutting reimbursement rates, which discourages health care providers from accepting Medicaid patients. The Texas Medical Association also expressed disappointment that Gov. Rick Perry rejected proposals to expand the number of people on Medicaid to include the working poor.
  • But since the poor and uninsured often rely on expensive emergency room care, Lunsford said hospitals will continue to pass on those costs to the public when those patients don’t pay their bills.
Mal Allison

Overcoming Fragmentation in Health Care - John Noseworthy - Harvard Business Review - 0 views

blogs.hbr.org/...tainable-model-for-health-care

health care Noseworthy Fragmentation

shared by Mal Allison on 15 Oct 13 - No Cached
  • But the ACA does little to address fragmentation, quality of care, and the sustainability of the financial model for U.S. health care — ho
  • At the foundation of our approach is a knowledge-management system — an electronic archive of Mayo Clinic-vetted knowledge containing evidence-based protocols, order sets, alerts and care process models
  • It is alarming to see more than a two-fold variation in health care quality across the country.
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  • One such resource is the work of Optum Labs, which we formed with Optum earlier this year. Optum Labs, an open R&D facility with a unique set of clinical and claims data, is being used to drive advances that will improve health care for patients and our country. We are now inviting others — providers, life science companies, research institutions, consumer organizations, and policy makers — to be part of Optum Labs. This opportunity to apply world-class analytical tools to both cost and quality will provide t
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