Category Archives: employer provided health care

The Key to Solving our Healthcare Cost Problem

Posted on by
4

 

My last three posts: here, here, and here, are concerned with the high cost of American healthcare and how this is so closely tied in with our very large and badly out-of-control national debt. In particular, three giant American companies: Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway, and JP Morgan Chase are forming an independent healthcare company to try to hold down healthcare costs for their combined one million employees in the U.S.


Dr. Elizabeth Rosenthal, an MD and editor-in-chief of Kaiser Health News, points out that this new company may help its own members but end up hurting the rest of us:

  • Previous efforts along the same line by Safeway and Boeing have held down costs for the companies own employees but are too small scale to have had broader impact.
  • The new company, much larger in size, may be able to negotiate lower prices from labs and hospitals for its own members. But then these same labs and hospitals will charge more for everyone else.

Moreover, in general, employer based healthcare insurance has lots of problems:

  • It diminishes incentives to reduce costs by insulating workers from the full price of their benefits.
  • It discourages changes that could displease even a small number of workers, thereby creating incentives to minimize disruption.
  • The pervasiveness of employer health insurance makes it more difficult for individuals to buy health insurance on their own, thus discouraging entrepreneurship.

Conclusion. Given the inherent flaws in employer provided health insurance, it is unlikely that more innovation by individual companies, or groups of companies, will lead to an overall solution to the exorbitant cost of American healthcare.
The solution lies in a different direction: ending or at least modifying the ACA’s employer mandate.  See here for details.  More later!

The Outrageously High Cost of American Healthcare

Posted on by
3

On January 24 I announced my candidacy in the Republican Primary for U.S. Senate against the incumbent Deb Fischer who is doing nothing to reduce our badly out-of-control national debt and, in fact, just voted to increase it by $1 trillion over the next decade.
It is the high cost of government healthcare spending for Medicare, Medicaid and the tax exemption for employer-provided care which is the main driver of federal debt.


But now look at a recent report from Bloomberg Markets on the outrageously high cost of employer-provided health insurance for American workers:

  • The average worker paid $5,714 in 2017 out of a total cost of $18,764 for a family plan. Deductibles last year averaged $5,950 per individual and double that per family.
  • In the past five years insurance premiums increased by 19% while worker pay increased by 12% and inflation increased by just 6%.
  • A family of four paid $26,944 for healthcare expenses (including out-of-pocket) last year which was 44% of median household income of $59,039.
  • Health insurance premiums are up 11% in 2018.

Conclusion. I have been predicting a fiscal crisis in the relatively near future over federal debt. But we actually have an immediate crisis on our hands over the horrendous cost of employer-provided healthcare.

Health Care Spending is Driving Budget Deficits

Posted on by
12

 

In my last post, “Annual Deficits are Starting to go Back Up,” I refer to a new report from the Congressional Budget Office to show that it is the large annual increases in federal healthcare spending (Medicare, Medicaid, CHIP and Obamacare) which is the main driver of our annual deficit spending which is going to start increasing again unless we do something serious about it.
CaptureThe basic problem is, as shown by the above chart, that Americans, in general, don’t have enough skin in the healthcare game, i.e. we don’t pay enough of our health care expenses out of our own pockets, and therefore we don’t directly feel the pain of high and rapidly increasing health care costs.
A group of policy experts from the American Enterprise Institute have come up with a practical plan to address this problem.  Its elements are:

  • Retain employer provided coverage. This is how half of Americans get health insurance. The only change would be an upper limit on the tax preference for employer-paid premiums so that only the most expensive plans would exceed it.
  • Tax Credits. Individuals without employer coverage would get a tax credit with no strings attached to pick any state-approved plan that meets their needs.
  • Continuous coverage protection. As long as people stay insured, they cannot be denied enrollment based on health status.
  • Medicaid reform. The federal government would give states fixed, per-person payments based on historical spending patterns. Able bodied adult and their children could combine Medicaid and the (refundable) federal tax credit to enroll in a private insurance option.
  • Medicare reform. Medicare would provide a fixed level of assistance which seniors would use to purchase a health plan of their own choosing.
  • Expanded Health Savings Accounts. These are intended to be used with catastrophic insurance with a high deductible. HSAs could be established with a one-time $1000 tax credit and unused funds rolled over from one year to the next.

Such a system does not repeal, but rather improves the Affordable Care Act. It keeps the ACA exchanges and introduces cost controls in a flexible manner, i.e. without mandates.  It is the type of system the U.S. needs to get health care costs, and therefore overall deficit spending, under control.

Follow me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/jack_heidel
Follow me on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jack.heidel.3

A Much Better Republican Strategy for Obama Care

Posted on by
Reply

 

On the eve of its implementation, the Affordable Care Act (aka Obama Care) is more unpopular than ever amongst the general public.  But the House Republican strategy of trying to defund the ACA as part of a continuing resolution to fund the government for the new fiscal year is a very poor idea.  It will never pass both houses of Congress and be signed by the President.  All it can possibly do is lead to a temporary shutdown of the government and therefore cause mass confusion.
The Wall Street Journal recently suggested a much more effective way for the House Republicans to proceed in “Carve-0uts for Congress”.  The legislation establishing the ACA contains a provision requiring all members of Congress and their staffs (11,000 people in all) to purchase their own health insurance on the new exchanges which are being set up to enroll uninsured Americans.  The idea behind this provision is to insure that members of Congress and their staffs and their families will obtain their insurance just like everyone else so that they will fully experience how healthcare reform actually works in practice.
But just a month ago the Administration personnel team issued a regulation exempting all Members and aides from the requirement to use the exchanges.  A recent poll taken by Independent Women’s Voice shows that 92% of likely voters, regardless of their views of the ACA, think that this exemption is unfair.
The implication is clear.  Republicans should show their dissatisfaction with the ACA by attaching the repeal of this exemption, which is contrary to law, as well as highly unpopular, to the continuing resolution to fund the government for the next fiscal year.  Let the Democratic Senate defend this exemption if it wants too.  It’s an opportunity for the House Republicans to do the right thing and also to stand with the “little guy” against the Washington elite.

Private Health Care Reform is Getting Started!

Posted on by
Reply

 

Yesterday’s Wall Street Journal has a very interesting article, “More Employers Overhaul Health Benefits”, which describes a movement just getting started whereby employers give their employees a fixed sum of money and let them choose their own plan from an online market place.  The idea is that employers will be better able to predict and control their healthcare expenses for employees.  Furthermore, employees will be able to get better value for dollars spent by selecting their own coverage options, deductible amounts, copays, etc.
In fact, in an exchange run by Liazon Corp., which has 60,000 people enrolled, 75% of workers have chosen less expensive plans than they had before, by accepting bigger deductibles and copays, as well as smaller choices of healthcare providers and restrictions such as primary-care gatekeepers.
This is such an appealing approach to private healthcare cost control that the Accenture Management Consulting Company estimates just five years from now there will be 40,000,000 business employees receiving their healthcare benefits in this manner.  This would be a phenomenal development!
The United States spends 18% of GDP on healthcare altogether, both public and private, which is double the amount spent by any other country.  This enormous expense is a major reason why wage growth is stagnant in our country as well as why the costs of public programs like Medicare and Medicaid are so high and contributing to so much government debt.  It is critical for our country to get the rapid increase of healthcare costs under much better control.  That’s why this new movement of employers and employees working together on this critical problem is such a big step in the right direction.
If the estimate by Accenture is anywhere nearly accurate about how fast this new private healthcare selection method will grow, then there will soon be an excellent opportunity for Congress to expand its benefits to the control of Medicare and Medicaid costs as well.  This is very exciting indeed!

How Can We Boost Stagnant Wages?

Posted on by
Reply

 

Today’s Wall Street Journal has a column by Neil Shah, “Stagnant Wages Crimping Economic Growth”, pointing out that the average hourly pay for non-supervisory workers, adjusted for inflation, has declined to $8.77 last month from $8.86 in June 2009, when the recession ended.  It has also been reported recently, e.g. in the New York Times, that U.S. medium household income, now at $52,100, has not nearly recovered from its prerecession peak of $55,500 and is even below its $54,500 level in June 2009, at the end of the recession.
Lower income for workers and households mean lower consumer spending.  This is a major reason for our economy’s low annual growth rate of only 2% of GDP since the end of the recession.  Of course, the high unemployment rate, currently 7.4%, as well as increasing global competition, contribute to downward pressure on wages.  But there is another factor, directly under government control, which is a major contributor to stagnant and declining wages.
Washington Post columnist, Robert Samuelson, in a recent column reprinted in the Omaha World Herald, reported that, from 1999 to 2013, wages and salaries rose 50% (adjusted for inflation) while health insurance premiums increased 182%.
Most health insurance is provided and largely paid for by employers and is therefore an indirect form of compensation.  The huge disparity between wage gains and health insurance premium increases in recent years means that wages are being held back by the rapidly increasing cost of health care.  The U.S. spends 18% of GDP on healthcare, twice as much as any other country and this is clearly out of line.
The best single thing we can do to slow down healthcare inflation is to remove the tax exemption for employer provided healthcare (and offset it with lower overall tax rates).  Employees would then pay taxes on their health insurance benefits as part of their pay. This would have the beneficial effect of making consumers far more conscious of the true cost of healthcare and therefore consumers a strong incentive to hold down these costs.
It is up to Congress to change this provision of the tax code.  Let’s insist that they get this done!