Business
Employers shifting more health costs to workers
■ Businesses remain committed to wellness programs and disease management, a consulting firm survey found.
By Emily Berry — Posted Oct. 8, 2009
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Employers still offering health insurance to workers are, in many cases, planning to raise out-of-pocket costs for their employees in 2010. However, those same employers are holding on to programs meant to keep workers healthy.
In its annual survey of employers gearing up for benefits open enrollment, consulting firm Watson Wyatt found about four in 10 companies planned to raise co-pays, coinsurance or deductible for workers, passing on more of the cost of benefits to them.
That's a continuation of a long-running trend, said Tom Billet, senior consultant with Watson Wyatt.
It's unclear whether there's a limit to how high cost-sharing can go, and what that would mean for patients and physicians.
"Higher cost-sharing means less insurance, so if you want to have meaningful insurance, there's a limit to the amount of cost-sharing," said Dahlia Remler, PhD, associate professor at the School of Public Affairs at Baruch College, part of the City University of New York. She co-authored a review of available literature about cost-sharing published earlier this year in the Annual Review of Public Health (link).
Remler said one limitation of the current research is that most of it looks at low levels of cost-sharing, not high-deductible plans that substantially raise the out-of-pocket cost of care.
Watson Wyatt's study also found more companies were planning to offer high-deductible, consumer-directed health plans paired with health savings accounts, although in most cases, those plans would be an option, not a replacement for comprehensive coverage, Billet said.
Employers are also trying to keep workers from getting sick and facing a huge out-of-pocket bill by continuing to offer wellness programs and benefit designs that cover preventive care.
"Most companies that have those programs see them as an integral part of the long-term solution to addressing health care issues," he said.