The Day After An Historic Day
Wednesday November 5th. My first appointment; an employer/client with a staff of 16 (average age, 35). I'm delivering their health insurance renewal. It's a 4.4% increase without any changes to deductible or co-pays. (I wish they were all this good!) After the increase, the annualized billed premium per covered employee will be $4,960.
This afternoon we are delivering another renewal to a client with 156 employees (average age, 41). They are getting an 11.7% increase but after switching to a new provider network - with the same insurer and a 99% overlay (match) - we end up with a 5.2% increase. With no other plan design changes, after the renewal, the annualized billed premium per covered employee will be $7,027. Note: I did not cherry pick these two groups because they have exceptionally low costs. They just happen to be on my calendar today and in fact, across the board, our clients pay on average an annualized premium of $5589 per employee. Premium sharing between employer and employees further reduce our client's cost by about 25%.
I share such detail because yesterday's election results included advisory referendums from 22 cities and counties across the state on the question: "Shall the state legislature enact health care reform legislation by December 31, 2009, that guarantees every Wisconsin resident affordable coverage as good as what is provided to state legislators?" By about a 74% margin - it wasn't even close - all 22 voted 'Yes'.
Have the voters spoken? Figures available on line show that 81,440 employees covered under the Wisconsin Employee Trust Fund cost taxpayers $950,775,000. Despite the size of the pool and the state's obvious 'buying power', that works out to $11,675 for each employee; about double - but sometimes triple - what our small business clients are paying. Would the results of the referendums have been the same if the wording defined "affordable"? [Everyone wants their children to have a good education but referendums asking for millions to build new schools more often than not are rejected.]
As soon as January, the new majorities in the State Assembly and Senate will be eager to respond to the voice of their constituents. We've asked for change so by golly, change we're going to get! "Affordable health care as good as what is provided to state legislators" will be at the top of their list. Every client I work with has a different take on what health coverage is "good" and what premiums are "affordable". The great thing about my work as a broker/consultant is the choices I bring to each situation. Those who will be crafting reform legislation would do well to model their ideas on the results achieved by small businesses and not state employees. To do otherwise would bankrupt an already cash strapped state.
Labels: Legislation, Shopping for Health Care
posted by Jon Rauser @ 3:28 PM
2 Comments
As President & Owner of a successful health insurance brokerage in downtown Milwaukee - 
2 Comments:
Jon, your story is significant for many reasons. The most important one, however, is the public's perception of health insurance; what it is supposed to do, and how best to make it work for them. The idea that suddenly, billions of dollars will appear to satiate the needs of people who want someone to pay their bill belies an incredible lack of understanding. In my humble opinion, the only ones who can stop this rush toward socialized health care are people like you, who talk to people every day; doctors who see patients (and who prefer not to be slaves); employers and their employees. For certain, the politicians will give them what they want, not what is right.
Jon, Once again you are on the mark. The state run and managed benefits program is far too expensive to make sense for most businesses and it does nothing to fix the problems that exist.
Real healthcare reform needs to include actual reform, not just affordable or worse, "free" insurance. The root of the problem is not that insurance is too expensive it's that healthcare in poorly utilized and costs are shifted to the party that can pay, making care for those that do pay way too expensive.
Let's take this "historic opportunity" to reform healthcare. The Four Cornerstones initiative is a good start. Citizen patients need to get involved and make informed choices when purchasing healthcare just like everything else.
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