In a recent survey done by HR consultancy firm Mercer, employers selected quality improvement and market reform as their top priorities for our nation’s health care overhaul.
First on the list of priorities was quality improvement. It was listed by 60 percent of respondents as a top priority and includes among other things:
- Building more credible databases for evaluating provider performance and paying providers for outcomes
- Adopting health information technology
- Improving coordination of care for people with complex illnesses
- Increasing primary care resources, especially in underserved locations
Linda Havlin, a Mercer worldwide partner stated that quality improvement is the number one option employers have for controlling rising health care costs. She suggested that the government can support this cost-control need “by aligning government-sponsored programs with private sector initiatives”.
The second item on employers’ wish list was the enactment of insurance market reforms. Fifty percent of employers cited market reforms such as elimination or pre-existing conditions exclusions and lifetime benefit caps as a high priority.
Two items that didn’t make the “wish list”
Within the healthcare reform proposals, two of the items employers oppose the most are:
- Limits to the favorable tax-treatments of employer-sponsored health benefits (i.e. the proposed taxes on “Cadillac plans”)
- Mandates for employers to offer coverage
Mercer’s survey results showed that 59 and 52% of employers respectively do not want these two items included in the final reform.
Massachusetts Senator John Kerry, who recently proposed a “play or pay” mandate for employers to offer health insurance coverage, recently stated his belief that more employers would terminate their offering of health care coverage if it wasn’t mandatory.
As Massachusetts employers, has the statewide mandate for employers (with 11+ full-time equivalent employees) to offer (and pay at least 33% of) coverage or make a Fair Share Contribution to employees’ health insurance costs, affected your decision to offer insurance?
Also, how do you think lawmakers should define the so-called “Cadillac health plans”?
Should the upper limit for favorable tax treatment be the same in places with the highest costs of living as they are in places with the lowest or should there be no difference?
UBP blog 