Essays on Employee Health Benefits and Other Health Care Topics, Hosted by Brian Klepper
JANE SARASOHN-KAHN
Originally published 12/29/2010 on Health Populi
As household incomes in the U.S. have been, at best, stagnating in the past several years, the cost of health insurance premiums rose three times faster between 2003 and 2009. By 2015, the average premium for a family of four will reach nearly $18,000, according to The Commonwealth Fund.
Continue reading “The Growing Costs of Health Care Scuttle Boomers’ Retirement Plans”
PAT SALBER
Originally published 1/1/11 on The Doctor Weighs In
Today is not only the first day of the New Year (Happy New Year everyone), it is also the first day that the very first Boomers hit 65. There are 79 million of us and we will be blasting our way into Medicare with our usual self-absorbed focus on getting it all…for ourselves. Just in case you have forgotten, we are the generation that believed we could consume drugs with abandon and have sex whenever and with whomever we felt like – all without consequences. Sex, drugs, and rock n’ roll. So much fun, while it lasted (think Woodstock, not Altamont).
Continue reading “Happy New Year Health Care System: Are You Ready For The Boomers?”
JANE SARASOHN-KAHN
Originally published 12/16/2010 on Health Populi.
Just over one-half of U.S. employers plan to maintain their health plans in 2014 even if health insurance exchanges (HIEs) offer competitive priced health plans for individual employee health coverage, according to a survey of 1,400 employers by Willis and Diamond Management & Technology Consultants. 1 in 3 employers is not sure whether they’ll maintain their own health plan or shift employees toward an HIE.
ROBERT LASZEWSKI
Originally published here on 12/15 on Kaiser Health News.
If the Supreme Court does rule the individual mandate unconstitutional will it really bring down the whole law?
I don’t see it.
Continue reading “Is The Individual Mandate Really A Lynchpin In The New Health Law?”
WENDY LYNCH
Originally published here on 9/08/10 on the Health As Human Capital Foundation Blog
Have you ever tried to purchase cable television with just the channels you want to watch, and been told that you need to buy the ‘whole package’ to get service? Sound like your cell phone plan?
We often see private companies ‘bundle’ services to boost revenue or maximize their profit margins, and as consumers, we have to decide if we’re willing to purchase these sorts of arrangements. But what would happen if the government were to require the public to purchase a service, and then mandate a very expensive bundle of services without giving consumers a choice about what’s included? Welcome to healthcare.
Continue reading “Mandated insurance coverage means mandated cost. What do we really want to pay for?”
C. EUGENE STEUERLE
Originally Published 10/28/2010 on The Government We Deserve
U.S. citizens soon will be participating in a four-part, nearly universal, health care system. Medicare, Medicaid, employer-provided health, and the new exchange insurance policies all come with different government subsidies.
Continue reading “Fixing the Nation’s Four-Tranche Universal Health System”
Care And Cost 