In Business Insurance, Matt Dunning writes that an early survey of compliance with the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act shows increases in some employers’ health benefits costs up to 5%.
Early Results
Here are a few highlight statistics, but read the rest of the article for the whole story:
- 55% of those who calculated the effects attributed Health Care Reform directly to cost increases of at least 2%
- 15% said Health Care Reform directly increased their costs at least 5%
- 62% said they expect employers to pass more costs to employees in the form of higher contributions to premiums
- 56% said they expect employers to raise deductibles and copays
Long Term Effects: Entrepreneurial Spirit to the Rescue
These early results can’t predict the final effects of Health Care Reform. Even though the national health care debate centers around health insurance, it has shed a lot of light on the root cause of the problem: the cost of the health care itself and how we pay for it. This spotlight has given rise to a lot of new companies like Castlight Health and SeeChangeHealth that saw the importance of end user decision making and revealing the actual cost of health care and not just the size of health insurance premiums and copays. Companies like Apixio and entrepreneurs like Jay Parkinson who started HelloHealth and Future Well are taking advantage of the attention to get funding for companies that improve data analysis and efficiency in the behemoth that is our health care system.
Many industries that have become Institutions with a capital “I” end up doing things “the way they’ve always done them” because, well, that’s they way they’ve always been done. Whether or not the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act ends up raising or lowering costs on its own, as the dust of the debate between fierce proponents and opponents settles, there are many more companies focused on making sensible health care choices and employing health care data more efficiently. And for that, we’ll all be better off.
At Andreini & Company, we have a range of insurance products from traditional guaranteed cost to fully self-insured that allow employers to take advantage of improved transparency and data efficiency as well as new wellness and employee decision making information to take control of their own health care costs. Want to see a variety of options? Contact us today.
