3 questions to ask before moving to a private exchange
Originally posted July 24, 2014 by Andrew Bloom on https://ebn.benefitnews.com
As employers grapple with how best to deliver health insurance to their employees, the concept of private insurance exchange or marketplace is quickly gaining traction. In a private exchange model, rather than continuing to assume the responsibility for making healthcare decisions for plan participants (or managing the risk on their behalf), an employer transfers responsibility to employees. This transfer of power enables employees to make important decisions on behalf of their families. Employers have something to gain, too: predictable healthcare costs.
But there is more involved here than simply choosing a private insurance exchange over a traditional benefits delivery model. This is not a simple switch you flip. In fact, the move to a private exchange could be difficult for employees who generally are not accustomed to making benefits plan decisions for themselves, or who balk at the potential of an increased out-of-pocket burden. It’s incumbent upon employers to guide them through the transition to help them accept the idea that having more power and choice is a good trade-off to taking on more risk. To do this, the employer must introduce a defined contribution approach to the workforce and embrace concepts like premium transparency, fixed dollar contributions and multiple plan options.
When done properly, a private exchange will help you achieve the three C’s of benefits: consumerism, compliance and cost-containment.
In short, there’s a tremendous upside toward embracing this strategy, which is a reason why most employers are investigating the option of private exchanges. For virtually every organization, it is not a matter of “if” joining a private exchange is right; it is a matter of “when.”
The key to answering “when” a private insurance exchange is right for your organization starts with understanding where you are on the course. This will help you determine what tools and resources are necessary to help get you there.
Here are three simple questions to consider:
1. How do your employees enroll in benefits today?
2. Do you have a health/wellness and cost management strategy in place?
3. How active are your employees in your current benefits decision-making process?
Depending on the answers to these questions, you may need to:
- Alter your benefits philosophy and design benefits plans and programs to help you move further down the path on the engagement spectrum.
- Design an aggressive wellness and health management strategy. While a private exchange may provide short-term cost savings, it is not a silver bullet. You must continue to drive better behaviors to control costs associated with your program over the long term.
- Execute an ongoing communication strategy that educates employees to become smarter consumers of benefits and better prepared to accept the responsibility and risks associated with making healthcare decisions.
- Implement benefits administration technology that will allow you the flexibility of managing your current program as well as a private exchange, thus affording you the flexibility of a smooth transition.
- Leverage an experienced third party, regardless of implementing a private exchange, to manage the administrative complexities and ever-changing regulatory requirements surrounding your benefits program. This is critical to eliminating costly mistakes and ensuring regulatory compliance.
Before pushing off from the starting line, consider if your organization and employees are ready for such a significant shift in benefits delivery. Keep in mind that preparation for a private exchange is a bit like running a relay. Before the starting shot is fired, everyone in your organization must fully trained to make it around the track.
Employers have an opportunity to transform the delivery, management and overall outcome of their health and welfare programs for the better. A private insurance exchange will be a critical component of your benefits program, but only after you determine your readiness and strategy before taking the first step.
Open enrollment checklist for employers
Originally posted July 23, 2014 by Alan Goforth on https://www.benefitspro.com
Wrestling with the implications of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act could make the upcoming open enrollment period one of the most challenging in memory. Mercer, a human resources and benefits company in New York City, encourages companies to approach the fall season with a plan.
Mercer’s proposed checklist includes:
- Consider offering a consumer-driven health plan. The momentum behind this type of plan continues to grow, with 39 percent of large of large employers offering one last year and 64 percent expected to do so within two years.
- Communicate early and often to the newly eligible. Mercer’s research indicates that one-third of employers still need to make changes to comply with the requirement to extend coverage to all employees working 30 or more hours per week. Start communicating right away with newly eligible employees about who is eligible, why they are eligible, how eligibility was determined, what this means and what they have to now consider. Information should also be delivered to those who still remain ineligible and the options these employees may have in the public exchange arena.
- Make voluntary benefits a big part of the message. Voluntary benefits can deliver significant value to employees and are an important element of a thoughtfully designed benefits program. They can also be used to overcome misperceptions and confusion around other benefit offerings. These offerings also can assist employees who remain ineligible for the employer-sponsored medical plan.
- Use open enrollment as an opportunity to reinforce wellness campaigns. This is particularly important if any perceived compliance penalties are going to be introduced next year, such as increased premiums for those who do not participate in health screenings.
- Deploy decision support and mobile technology to support the accountability theme. Participants are being asked like never before to take accountability for their health benefit decisions and cost outlays. For example, some employers are providing digital “wallet cards” for smart phones and other devices that contain benefit information and contacts needed at the point of service or anywhere else a participant needs this information and/or advice.
What Americans think about health insurance & hiring practices
Originally posted July 25, 2014 by Lynette Gil on https://www.lifehealthpro.com
In a recent survey from Gallup, the majority (58 percent) of Americans said that they would justify charging higher health insurance rates to smokers. And about 39 percent said that they would justify raising health insurance rates to those significantly overweight.
Both percentages have gone down slightly since 2003, when Gallup asked these questions for the first time: from 65 percent for smokers having to pay higher rates and 43 percent for those significantly overweight.
The results are part of Gallup's July 7-10 2014 Consumption Habits survey, in which telephone interviews were conducted with a random sample of 1,013 adults, aged 18 and older, living in all 50 U.S. states and D.C.
The survey also asked participants if companies should be allowed to refuse to hire smokers or those significantly overweight. Most Americans agreed that there should not be discrimination against both. Only 12 percent said that companies should be allowed to refuse to hire people because they are significantly overweight (down from 16 percent in 2003); 14 percent said the same about smokers (up one percentage point from 13% in 2003).
Even though most Americans oppose “hiring policies that would allow companies to refuse to hire smokers or those who are significantly overweight,” it is unclear if those views are because they do not think smoking and obesity negatively affect workplace performance or they “simply reject discrimination of any kind in hiring,” the report says.
According to the report, smoking and being overweight are associated with higher health care costs, and even the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) allows for higher insurance premiums for smokers. Some would argue that allowing companies to refuse to hire smokers and people who are overweight, or charging them higher health insurance rates, might help encourage healthier lifestyles.
Revisiting Medical Loss Ratio Rebates
Originally posted July 5, 2012 by Bob Marcantonio on https://www.shrm.org
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA or ACA) requires insurers to report their Medical Loss Ratios (MLRs) to regulators and to meet certain MLR targets. If an insurer exceeds the minimum MLR, the insurer must issue a rebate to the policyholder. The first of these annual rebates is due in August 2012. How are rebates determined?
Rebates are determined according to the prior year’s MLR. Rebates issued in August 2012 will depend on 2011 performance and are not group or individual specific. They are calculated at the carrier and market segment (i.e., individual, small group and large group) level. In some instances the individual and small group markets may be merged.
The ACA defines a small employer as an employer having at least one but no more than 100 employees. However, it provides states the option of defining small employers as having at least one but not more than 50 employees in plan years beginning before Jan. 1, 2016.
Generally, if you have fewer than 100 employees (using the definition for full-time equivalents) you will be purchasing coverage in the small group market.
The MLR is calculated by dividing the medical expenses of the carriers’ segment by the net earned premiums. Medical expenses include claims and activities to improve health care quality as defined in the rules. Net earned premiums include premiums paid by the policyholder minus taxes, licensing and regulatory fees. The MLR threshold for large groups (51+ benefits eligible) is 85 percent and the threshold for small groups (50 or fewer benefit eligible employees) is 80 percent. Certain states have received exemptions until 2014 that allow the MLR to be lower than those levels. In the case of states having more stringent MLR requirements, those requirements supersede the lower federal requirements.
Below are answers to common questions about MLR rebates.
My plan’s paid loss ratio is less than the target. Do I get a rebate?
Not necessarily. Rebates are not issued based on a single plan’s performance. Rebates depend on the insurer’s performance in a given market segment as outlined above.
How will insurers issue rebates?
For group health plans, insurers must issue the rebates to the plan. The plan must then pay out the rebates to the plan’s participants. If a group health plan terminates after the plan year but before the insurer issues rebates and the insurer cannot locate the plan, the insurer must attempt to issue the rebates directly to participants.
Who may receive a rebate?
Only fully insured policyholders are eligible. A policyholder can be an individual or an employer-sponsored group health plan. In the case of a group health plan receiving a rebate, Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) regulations regarding fiduciary duty apply. If the rebate is small—$20 or less for a group health plan—the insurer does not need to issue the rebate to the plan.
What should you do if your group receives a rebate?
The Department of Labor (DOL) issued Technical Release No. 2011-04 outlining the proper handling of rebates. The release states that:
"If the participants and the employer each paid a fixed percentage of the cost, a percentage of the rebate equal to the percentage of the cost paid by participants would be attributable to participant contributions. Decisions on how to apply or expend the plan’s portion of a rebate are subject to ERISA’s general standards of fiduciary conduct. Under section 404(a)(1) of ERISA, the responsible plan fiduciaries must act prudently, solely in the interest of the plan participants and beneficiaries, and in accordance with the terms of the plan to the extent consistent with the provisions of ERISA.
"With respect to these duties, the Department notes that a fiduciary also has a duty of impartiality to the plan’s participants. A selection of an allocation method that benefits the fiduciary, as a participant in the plan, at the expense of other participants in the plan, would be inconsistent with this duty. In deciding on an allocation method, the plan fiduciary may properly weigh the costs to the plan, the ultimate plan benefit, and the competing interests of participants or classes of participants provided such method is reasonable, fair and objective. For example, if a fiduciary finds that the cost of distributing shares of a rebate to former participants approximates the amount of the proceeds, the fiduciary may decide to allocate the proceeds to current participants based upon a reasonable, fair and objective allocation method.
"Similarly, if distributing payments to any participants is not cost-effective (e.g., payments to participants are of de minimis amounts, or would give rise to tax consequences to participants or the plan), the fiduciary may utilize the rebate for other permissible plan purposes including applying the rebate toward future participant premium payments or toward benefit enhancements."
When will insurers issue the rebates?
Under the regulations, the first rebates are due Aug. 1, 2012, although the precise dates of receipt may be before the deadline, depending on the insurer. Insurers will send written notices to subscribers informing them that a rebate has been issued. Plan administrators should be prepared to field questions from employees who receive such notices.
Additionally, insurers not issuing a rebate must send letters to subscribers explaining the MLR rule notifying their health insurer had a medical loss ratio that met or exceeded the requirements.
How much might the rebates be worth?
The not-for-profit Kaiser Family Foundation released statistics garnered from insurers’ filings to the National Association of Insurance Commissioners. In the large-group segment, total reported rebates are $541 million nationwide. Among the insurers, 125 reported they expect to issue rebates to large groups covering 7.5 million enrollees. Insurers in 14 states do not expect to issue rebates in 2012. The largest average per-enrollee rebates projected are in Vermont ($386), Nebraska ($248), Minnesota ($146), New York ($142) and North Carolina ($121).
Among large group enrollees, 19 percent are projected to receive rebates nationwide. Taken in total, the average annual rebate in the entire large group segment per year will be $14 per enrollee, according to rebate estimates based on insurer filings to the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC).
Education heightens employee satisfaction with benefits, employers
Originally posted July 23, 2014 By Melissa A. Winn on https://eba.benefitnews.com
Employees are increasingly dissatisfied with their benefits, and therefore dissatisfied with their employers.
This trend, according to new research released by Unum, highlights the correlation between employers’ benefit offerings and the ability to attract and retain top talent. What’s more, the survey found employees who receive education about their employee benefits tend to be more satisfied with their benefits — and ultimately their employers. Benefit advisers working with employers can stress the importance of benefits education on employee satisfaction and how that translates into better employee attraction and retention.
The survey results released Tuesday show employee satisfaction with their benefits continues to closely relate to satisfaction with their employer. More than three-quarters (77%) of those workers who rate their benefits package as “excellent” or “very good” also rate their employer as an excellent or very good place to work. By contrast, only 17% of employees who consider their benefits package to be fair or poor rate their workplace as excellent or very good.
Also, 79% of workers who rated the education around their benefits as excellent or very good also rated their employer as excellent or very good — compared with only 30% of those who said the education they received was fair or poor.
“This research underscores the value of an effective benefits education plan because when an employee understands their benefits, they tend to value them more and in turn may then value their employers more for providing access to them,” says Bill Dalicandro, vice president of the consumer solutions group at Unum.
The Unum research reiterates recent findings from the Aflac Workforces Report that small business employees are not only dissatisfied with their employer’s benefit offerings but also willing to take a pay cut to work for an employer offering better benefits.
Unum’s online survey of 1,521 working adults, conducted by Harris Poll, finds that only half (49%) of U.S. workers rate their employer as an excellent or very good place to work and less than half (47%) of employees who were offered benefits by their employer rated their benefits as excellent or very good. This is the lowest rating of benefits in six years of conducting the research.
The survey also shows employees do not feel they are getting the information they need about the benefits they’re being offered. Only 33% of employees who were asked to review benefits in the prior year rated the benefits education they received as excellent or very good – a drop from 2012 and a reversal to the upward trend in ratings since 2009. In addition, nearly three in 10 (28%) rated their benefits education as fair or poor.
“With health care reform and other changes in employee benefit plans, employees have so much information to digest right now,” explains Dalicandro. “Employers can play such a great role in helping their employees understand their options so they will feel comfortable making benefits decisions.”
Hobby Lobby ruling spilling over to corporate world
Originally posted July 10, 2014 by Alan Goforth on https://www.benefitspro.com.
Both proponents and opponents of the recent ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court in the Hobby Lobby contraception case agree on at least one thing: The case may be settled, but how it will play out in the workplace is far from certain.
The court ruled that the 1993 Religious Freedom Restoration Act prevents certain employers from being forced to pay for contraceptives they oppose for religious reasons. However, the definition of which types of corporations are excluded remains murky.
"Nobody really knows where it is going to go," said Richard Primus, professor of constitutional law at the University of Michigan. "I assume that many more businesses will seek exemptions, not just from the [Patient Protection and] Affordable Care Act, but from all sorts of things they want to be exempt from, and it will put courts in a difficult position of having to decide what is a compelling government interest."
About 50 lawsuits filed by corporations nationwide, which were put on hold during the Hobby Lobby appeal, must now be resolved or re-evaluated. "We don't know ... how the courts will apply that standard," Primus said.
The decision also has ramifications beyond the courtroom. Even closely held companies with sincere religious beliefs must carefully consider the potential marketplace ramifications of crafting health-care coverage according to religious beliefs.
"Many owners of companies don't want to distinguish the difference between what's good for them personally and what's good for their business," said John Stanton, professor of food marketing at Saint Joseph University in Philadelphia. "I believe that if a business owner believes something is the right thing to do — more power to them. That's his business. However, he's got to be ready for the negative repercussions."
Eden Foods of Clinton, Mich., a natural-foods manufacturer, has filed a lawsuit and is balancing religious beliefs and business concerns. Since Eden initially filed its lawsuit last year over mandates to cover birth control in PPACA, some customers have taken to social media to express disapproval and outrage, even threatening a social boycott. However, the corporation also has gained new customers who support its stance.
"It's very conceivable they could lose business," said Michael Layne, president of Marx Lane, a public relations firm in Farmington Hills, Mich. "And they could lose employees, too."
Experts agree that the myriad issues raised by the Hobby Lobby decision could take a while to play out. "I think there will be a rush of litigation in the next year or two," Primus said. "I think that the exemptions are likely to get broader before they are limited."
Ancillary Plans Get a New Spin
Originally posted June 9, 2014 by Amber Taufen on https://www.benefitspro.com
Employers struggling with new mandates for basic health care programs probably don’t even want to think about offering their employees ancillary benefits like vision and dental insurance.
However, as many experts have noted, these two particular ancillary benefits can save employers money in the long run because regular dental and vision screenings can detect some chronic health conditions early.
Employer-provided flexible spending accounts and health savings accounts can be one alternative option to traditional health and dental insurance, but sometimes employees have difficulty understanding the parameters of these programs, or can’t find affordable out-of-pocket care on their own. So many employers are turning to alternative ways to provide vision and dental coverage to their employees – new, innovative methods of coverage that provide both flexibility and cost-savings. And the biggest trends all revolve around cost transparency and empowering employees to make educated care decisions.
Jason Szczuka, general manager of Brighter PRO, says that his tech company has helped fill a need for more cost-effective employee dental coverage – a need he says will definitely continue to grow.
“Traditional dental insurance does not work for employers and employees as a cost-effective benefit offering,” Szczuka says. “And there’s been zero innovation in this industry for the past 20 years. However, by leveraging newer technologies, our platform aligns the interests of patients, providers, and payers alike to lower claims costs through new efficiencies in benefits payments, network fee schedules, utilization review and group plan designs.”
Although the Brighter PRO set-up looks somewhat similar to a traditional preferred provider organization insurance plan, it’s actually a cost-transparency technology resource that creates new efficiencies to create lower overall dental costs.
Brighter PRO maximizes the savings it generates through a transparent online marketplace so members can easily shop for providers based on price and quality, while participating providers can compete for more patients by improving their prices and quality scores, and payers can lower their claims by optimizing how and where members use their benefits.
“We’ve built the technology that helps transform health care consumers into health care shoppers,” Szczuka says. “They can compare dentists side-by-side on cost, quality and convenience. Schedule their appointment online 24/7. And when the appointment is over, the user’s electronic dental record is updated so they can more easily and affordable maintain their oral health.”
Derek Moore, a senior benefits consultant with Leavitt Group, says his clients have appreciated the addition of Brighter PRO to his portfolio of benefit offerings.
“Some of my clients are saving 70 percent on their premiums for something they can do online – if you have a computer or a phone, you can use this service,” he notes. “Everything in today’s market seems to be quick, so it was only a matter of time before these technological innovations made its way into health care.”
Gene Erdman, director of human resources for the Southern California Pizza Co., likes the program because he’s able to offer a dental benefit for all of his employees – including his part-time workers.
“The adjustability and flexibility offered with a service like this fits our employee base very well,” he notes. “Our workforce skews toward millennials, and the concept of them being able to shop and price and make a decision about a care provider from data they can access from their iPad or phone or computer and really individualize that decision is significant for us.”
A clearer vision
And while companies like Brighter PRO look at new ways to provide dental coverage options for employers, other companies like Careington address the vision component of ancillary benefits.
“We’re a discount plan, and we’ve developed a somewhat exclusive network with vision carriers,” explains Greg Rudisill, senior vice president of strategic partnerships at Careington. “Many times, we can go into a big group and bundle all of these carrier networks together so that our members have the broadest access available.”
Rudisill notes that many Careington clients use the service in conjunction with FSAs or HSAs to help their employees manage their vision needs.
“Everything is very transparent, so the member can see what it would cost them for different services before they go in. If they know what it’s going to cost them in advance, they can set aside that specific aside of money in their FSA. And there are no claims to file, so providers love it because they don’t have to do a lot of administrative work like they would with an insurance plan.”
“The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is building our market for us,” Szczuka says, “because, although the need for dental coverage has been around for a while, the adult dental gap is going to continue to grow as the premium-to-benefit value of traditional dental insurance erodes even more quickly than it already has been.”
And if those trends continue in the ancillary world, employers will increasingly seek new, innovative methods to provide health care value to their employees.
Manage chronic diseases with smartphones and smart-tech inhalers
Originally posted November 5, 2013 by Kathleen Koster on benefitnews.com
If people with chronic conditions only spend about an hour a year with their physician, how can they stay adherent with medication and their disease education for the 8,759 hours they’re outside the doctor’s office? The most promising answer is through mobile devices.
Health plan providers and plan sponsors can use mobile devices to monitor and engage participants with notifications, such as medication reminders, when it is most convenient for them. Backsliders know where they are failing through self-monitoring in real time and coaches monitoring their results can intervene when necessary.
“People need to be thinking about lifestyle choices when they're living life. People don't live their life at a desk," says David Bjork, president of Telcare, Inc. He adds that lifestyle changes occur in the "between" moments, such as before and after work, during lunch or at home. Disease management programs and outreach need to encourage healthy behavior at all times.
Bjork insists that the current disease management strategy and methodology need to evolve; most of today’s programs identify people who are most expensive in claims data last year and manages them in order to save money for the future. However, he says, employers need to look at diseases from the wide mouth of the funnel and help people earlier before they escalate into high-risk categories and become high health plan utilizers.
Mobile technology is no different, says Bjork. Mobile outreach is deployed to focus on the most expensive, high-risk patients in a population. New solutions have emerged that collect data from more patients and track a wide range of peoples’ activity, biometric data or clinical metrics. And he believes more will come.
“The problem is that disease management as we know it has failed,” said Jonathan C. Javitt, MD, CEO and chief medical officer at Telcare, Inc. during a presentation at the Care Continuum Alliance Forum in Scottsdale, Ariz. These antiquated outreach programs too often identify the high-cost individuals from last year without taking into account who will be high cost this year or the year after that. He believes mobile solves this problem by engaging everyone in a population and can monitor and intervene with people in real-time before they become high risk.
Bjork agrees that tier-models focusing on certain diagnosis groups with high levels of utilization are missing an opportunity because certain disease states or condition states are left completely unguarded. For instance, disease management programs that focus on diabetes should also target obesity since that often leads to diabetes.
Mobile solutions for diabetes allow individuals to manage their blood sugar levels by sharing blood glucose levels through the cloud to the care management coach or vendor can monitor their levels behind the scenes. Mobile outreach can help manage pre-diabetes and weight as well by tracking a participant’s activity.
Carolina Advanced Health uses an online database to collect participant metrics and monitor them in a team-based approach with nutrition experts, care managers and pharmacists through disease registries. Participants self-collect their glucose levels through a mobile platform, which sends the data to health professionals. If the care team notices a blip in blood glucose levels after lunchtime, a nutritionist can call the patient immediately and ask them about their activity and meals that day to determine what caused the increase. The system educates the patient while monitoring their health metrics in real-time.
Self-management can get good results, explained Thomas Warcup, medical director at Carolina Advanced Health, but “when you add a team you get greater results because you’re watching the data on a real-time basis.”
Bjork believes mobile outreach like this is just the beginning. He predicts the mobile outreach for diabetes will fan out to managing other diseases. For example, blood pressure levels, asthma, and weight will all be observed in a more mobile way.
"We will start having methodologies for monitoring people in their own settings to manage behavior and intervene early on and not wait for the first episode to occur," he says.
One smart-tech inhaler gathers data whenever a patient uses it, helping understand what triggers an asthma attack and how to avoid one. Propeller Health’s inhaler shows when and where the patient uses it and combines this data with weather information (such as wind and UV index) as well as traffic information. With this data, they can map a city for an asthmatic patient so they can avoid bad air locations and prevent potential asthma attacks.
4 calls for medical help from employees
Originally posted on https://ebn.benefitnews.com
The Grand Rounds’ recent Employee Benefit Expectation survey, the results of which were announced Wednesday, emphasizes the high value employees place on medical plans that can extended to newer shapes of families – same-sex couples, aging parents and medical dependents much older than 21. "The modern employee," the survey reads, "is looking for employers that recognize the changing state of familial responsibilities."
Access to medical opinions and expert advice is very important to today’s employees – rated more desirable than free annual flu shots. Here are four things workers crave out of medical coverage and information, and how employers can benefit from meeting those needs.
More than one in four (28%) employees tell Grand Rounds they wouldn't know how to find a qualified medical specialist for a serious illness affecting them or a loved one, and 35% say they would pay $5,000 or more for the world’s leading specialist to review their own or a loved one’s case. “Today’s employee is hungry for better access,” Grand Rounds says.
Some 60% of respondents would be more likely to stay with their employer if free access to expert medical opinions was offered, versus only traditional health insurance. Additionally, when choosing between multiple employment offers, 68% say they would be more likely to select a position that includes free access to expert medical opinions that extends to their family.
"There is a real talent war going on in this country, especially here in Silicon Valley,” says Rick Foreman, CFO and VP of business operations for Wealthfront, a Grand Rounds client. “This means that recruiting and retaining top-notch talent no longer means providing weekly happy hours or a Ping-Pong table. It’s about adding real value to our employees' lives."
As part of the so-called Sandwich Generation, 47% of adults in their 40s and 50s have a parent aged 65 or older and are either raising a young child or financially supporting a grown child, according to the Pew Research Center. Increasingly, employees want help with their older family members: 60% of employees with living parents tell Grand Rounds that it's important health care benefits extend to them. “As employees widen their definition of family, they expect employers to do the same,” Ground Rounds says.
A whopping 89% of those surveyed say they would travel to receive a second opinion from a medical expert on a disease or condition. More than a third (35%) would go anywhere in the United States, and 22% say they would travel anywhere in the world – such is the extent of their desire for the best possible medical help.
5 things on Americans’ 2013 health policy agenda
Source: https://eba.benefitnews.com
By Gillian Roberts
With the 113th Congress up and running and the president’s policy schedule filling up by the day, a recent poll by the Kaiser Family Foundation and Harvard School of Public Health identified five things Americans would like the government to set as top health care priorities this year:
1. State exchanges. Fifty-five percent of respondents say state-based health insurance exchanges are a top priority for their lawmakers. With only 18 states and Washington, D.C., declaring they will create state exchanges, more information is needed on how federally run exchanges will operate in the remaining states. “This is the year of the health insurance exchange,” said David Colby of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation at a luncheon held Thursday at the Kaiser Family Foundation. The panelists, including Drew Altman, CEO of KFF, noted that governors are still split along partisan lines about the creation of exchanges.
2. PPACA opposition. Fifty-two percent, including 78% of Republicans, say the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act opponents in Congress should continue trying to overturn the law. When asked why, a majority of respondents cited overturning the law for “less impact on taxpayers, employers and health care providers.”
3. PPACA complacency. Forty percent think that PPACA opponents in Congress should “accept that it is now the law of the land,” and move on to focus on implementation.
4. Premiums. Increasing state regulation of health insurance premiums should be a priority for lawmakers, 37% of respondents say.
5. Women’s health care. One-fifth of respondents believe lawmakers should limit women’s family planning, reproductive health and other services. A timely topic as PPACA’s birth control mandate seems poised to head to the Supreme Court later this year, according to the Associated Press.