1. Health care costs seen rising 10 percent in 2009
Health care costs are expected to rise more than 10 percent into next year, according to a survey of insurers by Aon Consulting Worldwide. But that increase is the smallest Aon has seen in six years. Experts say it shows that efforts to tame costs, such as employee wellness or disease management programs, may be paying off. ''There's a variety of tactics that employers have been employing over the last 3 to 6 years that has had an impact on the market,'' said study director Bill Sharon, an Aon Consulting senior vice president. Aon Consulting surveyed about 70 health insurers around the country, including companies such as Aetna Inc. and Cigna Corp. It found that actuaries expect costs to rise an average of 10.6 percent during 12-month rating periods starting this year between April and September.
(AP via The New York Times, August 11, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/business/AP-Health-Care-Costs-Forecast.html
2. Locate there? Fat chance - As health costs rise, companies weigh the risk of opening in areas with high
obesity rates
You've heard of the steps companies are taking to cut their health care costs: They're banning smoking, offering yoga and wellness classes, even putting healthy snacks in vending machines. But what steps do companies take before they even open? In a trend that might sound extreme, a growing body of evidence suggests that some companies are factoring health into the way they select sites. Among other considerations, companies could be eyeing obesity rates before deciding where to put new plants and offices. The idea is that by examining obesity rates and avoiding opening where more obese people live, companies can cut their future health care costs. For the Carolinas, that could spell trouble, given that the majority of residents are tipping the scales. No companies that have recently opened sites in the Carolinas have acknowledged they consider such factors, and state and county economic development officials say companies have not asked them about obesity rates. But site selection consultants say considering the health of the potential work force is something that makes sense given rising health care costs – and that it's likely to become more widespread.
The Charlotte Observer, August 10, 2008
http://www.charlotteobserver.com/business/story/115833.html
3. GM Health-Care Pain Spreads
It was bound to happen. General Motors will be announcing to the salaried employees that they too will share the pain of changes to the health care provided by the company, starting Jan. 1. The announcement, confirmed by GM spokesperson Deborah Silverman, is due today -- just weeks after the company stunned the salaried retirees with the cancellation of health-care benefits for people 65 and over. This can't be entirely unexpected for the 36,400 remaining salaried employees, who are also awaiting further details of the cuts to their numbers announced at the infamous July 15 press conference.
TheStreet.com, August 8, 2008
http://www.thestreet.com/story/10432537/1/breaking-gm-health-care-pain-spreads.html
4. Raytheon is Ordered to Restore Health Aid
In a decision that a union group says may set an important legal precedent, a federal judge has ruled that Raytheon Missile Systems must restore health-care benefits to its employees who took early retirement. The ruling, in U.S. District Court for Arizona, was called on Thursday a "major victory for Raytheon retirees" by the International Association of Machinists Local 933, the AFL-CIO-affiliated union that represents Raytheon's hourly employees. The decision effectively restores about 1,000 retirees' and dependents' health-care benefits to levels before July 1, 2004, an attorney for the union retirees said. It requires the company to compensate the class members for premiums they paid since then — which the plaintiffs' attorney estimated were between $6 million and $12 million.
The Arizona Daily Star, August 8, 2008
http://www.azstarnet.com/allheadlines/251826
5. Plan reduces health costs for large employers
A group of large employers in southeastern Wisconsin have seen their health care costs decrease by 9% over the past two years under a plan put together for the Business Health Care Group, an analysis done for the employer coalition shows. Combined, the 18 unidentified employers included in the analysis provide health benefits for 55,000 employees, retirees and family members. “The initiative is working,” said Dianne
Kiehl, executive director of the Business Health Care Group. “The business community can influence this market if they want to.” The employer coalition was created to help bring health care costs in southeastern Wisconsin in line with other cities in the Midwest. It contracted with Humana Inc. in 2005 to put together a health plan solely for its members. That plan, introduced in 2006 and known as Humana Preferred, now covers more than 93,000 people.
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, August 5, 2008
http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=780234
6. Program to help companies shape up
In the latest sign of a burgeoning corporate wellness craze, Community Health Network's newest initiative is aimed at helping employers whip themselves into better shape. The Indianapolis-based hospital system on Monday launched Infinity Employer Health Solutions, an organization that sells wellness and health services to businesses to help them save money. The services include health screenings and weight-management and smoking- cessation classes, as well as more involved offerings such as a fully staffed clinic and pharmacy at the work site. With the launch of Infinity, Community joins a growing list of hospitals, health insurers, wellness companies and others seeking to offer advice and services to employers frustrated with years of escalating health-care costs.
The Indianapolis Star, August 5, 2008
http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080805/BUSINESS/808050328
7. Patient, not doctor, knows best
Ron Elliott and his co-workers at Peters Billiards in Minneapolis were struggling to pick health insurance for next year. The wrong choice could mean hundreds of dollars more out of pocket. Elliott takes five drugs for a heart condition and acid reflux. Chest pains recently put the 61-year-old inventory analyst in the hospital for a night. Should he choose a traditional plan or risk a new one with a higher deductible sweetened by a company contribution? "What makes the decision hard is the unknown. Am I going to have an injury or an illness or something that I can't forecast now?" Elliott wondered. This kind of health roulette is playing out in workplaces across the nation as an explosion of choices confront health care consumers. Picking insurance is just the first step into the rapidly changing health care landscape. Many people can now lower their premiums by adopting more healthful lifestyles -- but that's easier said than done. New options online to compare cost and quality can help consumers choose doctors and hospitals -- or just add to the heap of complex information they must sift through.
Star Tribune, August 4, 2008
http://www.startribune.com/lifestyle/health/26198874.html
8. Health-Care Reform, Corporate-Style
When a company unveils a new plan to rein in health-care costs, workers usually groan. Yet Toyota Motor (TM) is getting rave reviews for the on-site medical center it built at its truck factory in San Antonio. Ask line worker Louis Aguillon. He went to the clinic in May with nagging back pain, and paid just $5 for the visit. "I saw the doctor for 20 minutes," Aguillon beams. "You're not just a number there." Toyota isn't running a charity. The medical center, which cost $9 million to build in 2007, could save the company many millions over the next decade. Managed by Take Care Health Systems, whose business is running medical clinics, the program has helped Toyota slash big-ticket medical items including referrals to highly paid specialists, emergency room visits, and the use of costly brand-name drugs. Plus, there are big productivity gains because workers don't have to leave the plant and drive to a doctor's office for routine medical matters. The company doctor is back. It's a tradition with roots in the 1800s, but the practice fell from grace in the 1930s and 1940s, when critics complained that the doctors were mainly serving the employers' interests. Many states passed laws requiring such medical centers to be owned by physicians. Even now there are calls for monitoring the clinics, to ensure they emphasize patient care over savings.
Business Week, July 29, 2008
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/08_32/b4095000246100.htm?chan=top+news
_top+news+index_top+story
9. Report Predicts Health Care Cost Trends Will Level Off
The growth in health care costs paid by employers is expected to level off in 2009 after five years of deceleration, a report from PricewaterhouseCoopers’ Health Research Institute predicts. Based on a survey of more than 500 employer and health plans providing coverage to 11 million lives, New York-based PricewaterhouseCoopers found that medical costs will increase by 9.6 percent on average next year, compared with an average of 9.9 percent this year. Improved medical management and a focus on prevention and wellness are among the tools that employers are using to slow down the growth in health care costs, according to the report, “Behind the Numbers: Medical Cost Trends for 2009,” which was released Thursday, July 24.
Workforce Management, July 28, 2008
http://www.workforce.com/section/00/article/25/67/64.php
10. Hunting for new health plans
Healthy General Motors Corp. retirees faced with choosing a health insurance plan will likely find affordable coverage, but those with serious medical needs could outspend the $300-a-month pension increase the automaker is giving them in exchange for cutting their medical benefits. Ford Motor Co. and Chrysler LLC retirees who encountered a similar predicament last year, along with benefits experts, say it all depends on the type of plan the GM retirees select and whether they have significant prescription demands. "A lot of us were able to find affordable plans on the open market," said Chuck Austin, 66, president pro tem of the National Chrysler Retirement Organization, which has about 450 members. "If you're healthy, it's fine, but if you're not, you're looking at taking on some additional costs." In cutting health benefits for some 97,400 salaried retirees, GM follows the lead of Ford and Chrysler, which ended coverage for their retirees 65 or older in the last two years and replaced it with an annual stipend that could be used to buy supplemental health care. While GM hasn't specified the savings from nixing its retiree health benefits, the cuts are part of a larger effort to slash $1.5 billion in costs related to salaried employees.
The Detroit News, July 28, 2008
http://detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080728/AUTO01/807280332
11. U.S. surgical errors cost $1.5 billion a year: report
Preventable medical errors during or after surgery cause 10 percent of surgery-related deaths and may cost employers nearly $1.5 billion a year, according to a U.S. government report released on Monday. Errors ranged from bedsores and reopened wounds to infections and blood clots, according to the study from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. The agency looked at the records of more than 161,000 patients aged 18 to 64 covered by employer-based health plans who had surgery in 2001 and 2002.
Yahoo!/Reuters, July 28, 2008
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080729/hl_nm/surgery_errors_usa_dc;_ylt=AnLkqixXswpQgTdx
M0sjRIYQ.3QA
12. Program insures small businesses
Hundreds of workers at small businesses in Galveston County are receiving health care benefits for the first time under a program that could be up and running in Harris County next year. Several other Texas communities — including Dallas, El Paso, Travis and Bexar counties — are also keeping a close eye on the launch of Galveson's new program as they plan to roll out similar initiatives to reduce the number of uninsured workers in coming months. If they succeed, the efforts could reduce the number of costly emergency room visits, decrease demand for state entitlement programs and lower rates of employee turnover, officials said. Counties statewide see the Galveston program as a way to attack Texas' 25 percent uninsured rate, the highest in the country, officials said. Galveston's program, called 3-Share, splits the $180 monthly cost equally between the employer, employee and a $360,000 fund created by the Houston Endowment and University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston.
Houston Chronicle, July 25, 2008
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/health/5908582.html
13. 'Wellness' a healthy investment for company
Lincoln Industries looks like a typical blue-collar plant: workers cutting, bending, plating and polishing steel for products such as motorcycle tailpipes and truck exhausts amid the din of machinery. But the 565-employee Nebraska company is different. Lincoln Industries has three full-time employees devoted to "wellness" and offers on-site massages and pre-shift stretching. Most unusual of all: The company requires all employees to undergo quarterly checkups measuring weight, body fat and flexibility. It also conducts annual blood, vision and hearing tests. "When you get the encouragement from somebody to help you with nutrition and to help with a more active lifestyle, it makes it easier to be able to attain a lifestyle that most people want to attain anyway," says Hank
Orme, president of Lincoln Industries. The program has been in place 16 years.
CNN, July 25, 2008
http://www.cnn.com/2008/HEALTH/diet.fitness/07/25/fn.healthy.company/index.html
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