HRGuru

I think that our system is pretty insane. With healthcare costs rising 10% or more every year something needs to be done. I really think the government needs to work to create a system where everyone can at least get basic coverage so people aren't going bankrupt to pay for their medical bills.

Tough topic.   I'm sure I don't have THE answer for all of the problems with health care, rising costs etc.  But I have some interesting ideas for everyone to consider (or at least I consider them interesting).  Perhaps we're too focused on entitlement.  Perhaps employees are too used to going to emergency rooms for their kid's sniffles because they don't want to you their sick time benefits for doctor's appointments?  Perhaps employers don't allow enough employee choice in the design of health care benefits?  Perhaps both employers and employees are ignorant and need to be taught about what drives up the cost of health care and how to be a truly consciencious health care consume and self-advocate?

Here are some of my proposed solutions.  Do away with the traditional form of employer provided health beneftis.  Can them, at least over a period of 2-4 years.   Provide instead High Deductible, HSA compatible HMO and POS plans.  Pre-fund part of the HSA from the employer and have the employer and the employee share 50/50 the premium coverage on themself and their family.  Over time, eliminate the employer paid portion of the premium and have it all paid by the employee.   At the same time increase the pre-funding of the HSA component so the employer still contributes a sensible amount.   The employer can then enhance other benefits, including some benefits for those without families, like greater tuition reimbursement if you don't have family coverage when the employer is paying part of the family premium or pay for pet insurance for the non-human familied employees.  Identify what is an emergency and publish it.  Work with your insurance carrier and have them right a Penalty deductible for bringing a non-emergency to the emergency room.  Remove the copay for scheduling office visits and preventative care.   Give special days off that are solely for annual physical, annual mammogram/prostate/colon, etc.  Educate your employees with benefits and get them into the mindset of wanting to be proactive about their health.  Add reward systems for employees who (prove) they participate regularly in healthy activities.   And so on.

When people are given the choice to manage their own money, when they are given the responsibility to manage their own product or service they want, they will generally do a better job of it than any governmental agency or employer sponsored plan.  Too many rules, too many masses.      If we were all in control of our own money to purchase insurance then we help regulate things through supply and demand and insurers would have to have better designed plans, doctors and hospitals would have to be more competitive in their pricing and they would have to care about your health.   Free market regulation is always better.

I think it is up to HR to find a way to manage out of entitlement expecations and to find ways to make the problem better.  Either we're part of the solution or we're part of the problem.  If we leave it up to our bosses and the finance people nobody will have benefits and the employees won't get money to use for benefits.

A good solution will share the responsibility across the accountable members.  Our job is not to simply demand entitlements.  Our job is make employees better consumers and stop the overusage of costly methods like emergency rooms.  Change the way your managers look at sick days and make them realize that an employee who calls in to take their kid to the doctor for an office visit is not only not bringing germs to the office to infect everyone else, but is using the day off benefit for it's intended purpose and also smartly utlizing the lower cost method of obtaining health care.

Begin letter campaigns to your Congressmen/women and Senators and to the health insurance carriers and the doctor's associations.  Put pressure on companies to design plans that better fit your lifestyle. 

Employer's can't be the only deep pockets expected to constantly keep paying more and more.  Learn from the auto industry where excessively expensive benefits and the lack of proactive, comprehensive solutions has sent so many jobs oversees.   Globalization is not always good for the country with the highest standard of living.  Everywhere else can do it for less, so if you want to save jobs for the US, we need to get everyone from thinking about entitlements and start thinking about proactive solutions other than governmental regulations.

If every employer gave each employee $400 a month instead of having group health plans, what do you think the insurance companies would do?  Not sure myself, but it warrants and HR task force to look into it and see if we can be this countries leaders in solvinig what is truly an employment related issue.