Unbiased Analysis of Today's Healthcare Issues
On this Labor Day, how is healthcare evolving for workers and firms? First, healthcare spending is on the rise, with costs increasing more than inflation. Fox Business reports on a new Aon study which says that: …employer health care expenditures are projected to surge 9% in 2025 to more than $16,000 per employee, markedly higher…
The answer is health plans according to a new paper by Sen, Chang and Hargraves (2023): Using the Health Care Cost Institute’s data set of claims for one-third of the US population with employer-sponsored insurance, we found that unadjusted prices were higher in self-insured plans for most of the services we studied, with the largest…
In the past I have written about the limited evidence that wellness program work. So we should see that employers are abandoning these programs or at least scaling back? According to one recent study, however employers are actually increasing investments in wellness programs. The study surveys employers from over 500 companies with more than 100…
“This isn’t about big brother telling people what to do,” says John Rice, GE’s vice-chairman, “but helping them make better choices.” The Economist reviews large employers efforts to improve employee health and thus decrease their own health care costs. Some of these efforts include: Prohibiting smoking on company premises Handing our healthy recipes Building on-site…
At least Joe Paduda thinks so. His post today gives an example from the employer GTE. GTE was worried about ER and inpatient admissions rate for children with asthma. Why? Because employees who were single parents would miss work to take care of their children when they were sick. Mr. Paduda’s argues convincingly that employers…