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1. This Open-Enrollment Season, Beware of
Out-of-Pocket Costs
Next year, you'll likely pay more for your workplace health benefits, but you may have to read the fine print to figure out where the bite will come. As companies head into open-enrollment season, when they let employees pick their plans for next year, many firms say they are reluctant to boost health-care premiums too sharply at a time when wages are stagnant. Instead, workers can expect to pay significantly more for such out-of-pocket items as deductibles, co-payments and other fees.
Wall Street Journal, October 9, 2008
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122348910616316019.html
2. Employer-based health coverage declines
The health coverage most Americans receive is getting harder to find. The proportion of the population covered through work — either their own or a family member’s employer — declined last year for the seventh year in a row, according to a new study released Thursday by the Economic Policy Institute in Washington, D.C. Employer-based coverage remains the most prominent form of health insurance in the U.S., with 62.9 percent of people under the age of 65 covered this way. But the rate has fallen every year since 2000, when 68.3 percent of this population had employer-sponsored health insurance.American City Business Journals/Sacramento, October 9, 2008
http://www.bizjournals.com/sacramento/stories/2008/10/06/daily52.html?b=1223265600%
5e1715089&brthrs=1
3.
Businesses aim to reduce number of sick days with vaccinations at work
Angie Mills didn't need to make an appointment with her doctor or pay a cent when she received her flu shot Tuesday. All she had to do was show up for work. Her Omaha employer offers free flu shots each fall to workers, and Mills doesn't pass up the shots. Free or low-cost shots at work are becoming more common as employers look for ways to encourage workers to get vaccinated, said Howie Halperin, executive director of the Wellness Council of the Midlands. Major companies offering free or low-cost shots include Union Pacific Railroad, Mutual of Omaha, ConAgra Foods and Methodist Health System. Some employers go beyond free shots.
Omaha World-Herald, October 8, 2008
http://www.omaha.com/index.php?u_page=1208&u_sid=10453680
4. Business Cool Toward McCain’s Health Coverage Plan
American business, typically a reliable Republican cheerleader, is decidedly lukewarm about Senator John McCain’s proposal to overhaul the health care system by revamping the tax treatment of health benefits, officials with leading trade groups say. The officials, with organizations like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the Business Roundtable and the National Federation of Independent Business, predicted in recent interviews that the McCain plan, which eliminates the exclusion of health benefits from income taxes, would accelerate the erosion of employer-sponsored health insurance and do little to reduce the number of uninsured from 45 million.
The New York Times, October 6, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/07/us/politics/07health.html?em
5. Business leaders ask: How will U.S. pay for health care?
The presidential election could have a profound effect on health care, who gets it, and who pays for it. There are 45.7 million uninsured people in the United States, according to Census figures released late last month. Americans — primarily businesses — pay $15 billion a year in taxes to care for these individuals.
American City Business Journals/Milwaukee, October 3, 2008
http://www.bizjournals.com/milwaukee/stories/2008/10/06/focus4.html?b=1223265600%
5e1711311&brthrs=1
6. New law may allow kids to stay longer on parents' health insurance
When is it time to get off mom and dad's health insurance? If you're younger than 30, single and still in school, the state of Florida now says you may not have to make that decision right away. A new state law was to kick in Wednesday, though some of the specifics are in limbo as insurers, state regulators and employers subject to the statute try to determine how it will affect them. "We're in an adjustment period, where people are just learning and weighing their options about how they should address this," said Joanna Bonfanti, a government-affairs specialist with the Florida Chamber of Commerce. One of the more fierce debates surrounding the new law -- which allows some workers under certain circumstances to keep a child on their health insurance until the young man or woman turns 30 -- is about whether it will cause employers' already expensive health insurance to jump in price.
The Orlando Sentinel, October 2, 2008
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/business/orl-healthplans0208oct02,0,7399953.story
7. If you think HMOs were different, just you wait - As open enrollment season hands health care consumers choices to make, another wave of changes is about to occur
Dr. Thomas Harman has been caring for some very sick patients for the past two months. Including some he's never met. From miles away, the Mayo Clinic family doctor listens to their hearts -- instructing patients at home to hold a stethoscope to their chests while Harman dons headphones to listen via a computer. On a special touchscreen, they answer his questions about how they feel and input their weights, temperatures and other vital readings. Some have diabetes or chronic lung disease or are obese. The closest Harman gets is sometimes switching on a camera so he can talk "face-to-face" on the computer screen. "It doesn't feel that much different and, in many ways, forces us to direct our attention to the patient," said Harman, one of two doctors in Mayo's pilot telemedicine program. The experiment is just one of several harbingers of yet more change coming at health care consumers as they head into open-enrollment season, dutifully signing up for company wellness programs, picking from increasing numbers of health plans and trying to be smart consumers.
Star Tribune (Minneapolis-St. Paul), October 1, 2008
http://www.startribune.com/lifestyle/health/30072544.html?elr=KArksi8cyaiUHK:uUiD3aPc:_Yyc:aUU
8. Building Better Bodies
In this factory town in south-central Michigan, hard hit by the decline of the auto industry and home to a population whose health grimly lags well below national averages, several dozen small-business owners have joined forces in a wellness campaign that rivals those of the country’s giant corporations. With fewer employees to rely on, small businesses are particularly vulnerable when workers take sick days or function poorly on the job.
New York Times, October 1, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/01/business/smallbusiness/01HEALTH.html
9. States Act to Reduce Insurance Costs
In the last two years, at least three states have included health improvement in new programs intended to make health insurance more affordable for small employers. In Rhode Island, 350 employers with 50 or fewer eligible workers have enrolled in a state program offered by Blue Cross Blue Shield and United Healthcare.
New York Times, September 30, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/01/business/smallbusiness/01healthbar.html?scp=22&sq=
health&st=nyt
109. Federal appeals court upholds S.F. health coverage law
A federal appeals court upheld San Francisco's pioneering health coverage program today, saying the city has the legal authority to require employers to help pay for health care for uninsured workers and residents. The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected challenges by restaurant owners and the Bush administration to the ordinance, the first of its kind in the nation. The 2-year-old program, when fully implemented, will offer care at a network of hospitals and clinics for 73,000 uninsured adults not covered by the Medi-Cal program for the poor or Medicare for the elderly. More than 80 percent of the $200 million annual cost will come from state and local taxes and payments from patients, based on their incomes. The lawsuit challenged the city's authority to require large and midsize companies to help pay the bill.
San Francisco Chronicle, September 30, 2008
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/09/30/BA5K138P3T.DTL&type=health
11. Paying Workers to Go Abroad for Health Care
Insured Americans are starting to see some unusual options in their health-provider networks: doctors and hospitals in Singapore, Costa Rica and other foreign destinations. In an effort to control rising costs, a small but growing number of insurers and employers are giving people the choice to seek treatment in other countries, a practice known as medical tourism. Until recently, most Americans who traveled abroad for medical care were uninsured, or were seeking procedures not covered by insurance, such as cosmetic dentistry or aesthetic surgery. Now, a handful of plans are beginning to cover treatment overseas for heart surgery, hip and knee replacements and other major surgical procedures.
Wall Street Journal, September 30, 2008
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122273570173688551.html
12. Cat, Wal-Mart team up for Rx
Caterpillar Inc. and Wal-Mart Stores Inc. have embarked on a pilot drug program that could revolutionize the prescription drug industry, officials from both companies said Monday. Select salaried and management employees of Caterpillar as well as its retirees and surviving spouses can get Tier-1 generic drugs filled for no co-payment at all Wal-Mart, Sam's Clubs and Neighborhood Market stores now through Dec. 31, 2009, as part of the program that began earlier this month. The co-payment for the generic drugs is $5 at other pharmacies.
Peoria Journal Star (Ill.), September 29, 2008
http://www.pjstar.com/business/x425549704/Cat-Wal-Mart-team-up-for-Rx
13. Peabody Pays Mayo Clinic Prices to Save on Health-Care Costs
Ken Ferguson, 54, maintains the bulldozers and heavy trucks that haul coal at the Belle Ayr mine near Gillette, Wyoming. In return, his employer, Foundation Coal Holdings Inc., provides his family with the best medical care it can buy. Ferguson's wife, Shanna, had her colon removed last year because of chronic inflammatory disease. Foundation sent her 700 miles away to the top-ranked Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. The company covered the $85,000 bill for the operation and follow-up reconstructive surgery and even paid for Ken's motel. "I was at the best place with the best doctors possible,'' said Shanna, 50. "And we saved money.'' So did Foundation. The coal producer says it has found an unconventional way to cut health costs: Seek out the nation's best care and give workers incentives to use it.
Bloomberg, September 26, 2008
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=washingtonstory&sid=atHEjVNWVXow
14. Health Insurance Costs to Spike an Average 8 Percent
Health insurance premiums for federal employees will jump almost 8 percent, on average, in 2009, a sharp increase over the 2.9 percent increase this year and the 2.3 percent increase in 2007, the Office of Personnel Management announced yesterday. Premiums for most workers, however, will climb even more next year -- about 13 percent -- which is the increase for enrollees in the Blue Cross and Blue Shield plans. Sixty percent of federal workers are enrolled in one of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield plans. "We worked very hard to contain premium costs, and we were more successful with some health plans than with others," said Nancy Kichak, OPM's associate director for strategic human resources policy. The rates, she said, are the lowest possible in keeping with preservation of benefits and stability in the program.
Washington Post, September 26, 2008
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/25/AR2008092502677_pf.html
15. Federal Employees Across the Country to Have New Consumer Driven Health Plan in 2009
UnitedHealthcare, a leader in consumer driven health plans (CDHP), will offer a new CDHP in the Federal Employees Health Benefits (FEHB) Program for 2009. The open enrollment period for federal employees will run from November 10, 2008 through December 8, 2008. The new CDHP benefit, which includes a Health Reimbursement Account (HRA), offers several attractive features for federal employees, including lower premiums, access to UnitedHealthcare’s broad national physician and hospital network without the need for physician referrals, and full coverage of most in-network preventive care. The new CDHP and the existing tax-advantaged Health Savings Account (HSA)-eligible plan will be offered by UnitedHealthcare in 25 states and the District of Columbia in 2009.
Business Wire, September 25, 2008
http://www.businesswire.com/portal/site/home/permalink/?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=
20080925006239&newsLang=en
16. Study: Online Care May Reduce Healthcare Costs
Results of a study released today found that the use of online care for certain prescribed circumstances may result in first-dollar financial savings for employer-sponsored health plans. The Milliman study was authored by Arthur L. Wilmes, FSA, MAAA, principal & actuary at Milliman, an actuarial firm with a leading presence in the healthcare market. The analysis demonstrated potential medical savings of $3.36 and $6.95 per-member-per-month (PMPM) for commercial and Medicare plans, respectively.
Government Technology, September 25, 2008
http://www.govtech.com/gt/articles/418244
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