California Employer Health Benefits Survey, 2001
February 2002
“…two-thirds (66%) of large employers (200 or more workers) and one-third (35%) of small businesses (fewer than 200 employees) say they are likely to increase what employees pay for health insurance in the next year.”
Comment: California has been a leader in innovative models of health care coverage. Now there is discussion of the trend to shifting more health care costs to individuals. This isn’t a trend; it’s a tectonic shift.
California health insurance premiums increased 9.9% in 2001, more than double the inflation rate of 4.2%. Our current market oriented system of controlling health care costs has failed. Employers are finding the increases in costs to be intolerable. They are looking for relief.
Ironically, the one model of health care reform that would work is being excluded from almost all current discussions of reform. A single payer system would use global budgeting to freeze health care expenditures at the current level as a percentage of the GDP (or a comparable index that adjusts only for inflation). Businesses would no longer have to be concerned about increasing health care costs, not to mention being relieved of the administrative task of contracting for or managing health benefit programs.
As businesses look at their options, they should place on the table the single payer proposal. It will shine brightly sitting next to the other options.