Survey: Employers Expect Health Care Costs To Grow 7 Percent Next Year
A new survey by the National Business Group on Health found that employers expect to see a 7 percent bump in health care costs next year, partly due to costs associated with complying with the Affordable Care Act. To help pay for the increase, employers expect to increase workers’share of health care costs by about 5 percent.
More Support for Onsite Health Clinics
If the message has not yet sunk in that onsite clinics can help employers cut health care costs, consider the experience of employers in and around Green Bay, Wisconsin. There, tiny Bellin Health, a 95-doctor not-for-profit health system, has set up a handful of clinics for employers—ranging from a boat builder to a technical college to a door manufacturer—all of which saw health care costs either drop outright or inch higher at a rate far below projections.
Many States Poised to Defer to Federal Health Exchange
As many as half the states will forgo the opportunity to establish their own customized health exchange and instead defer to the federal exchange now being designed by the Department of Health and Human Services.
