Tag Archives: health care costs

A agree that it will cease to differentiate in the small-medium size business market.
Recently I have been dealing w the issue if health care w my clients even though it isn’t a focus of my services, they are truly in the dark as to what is the best method to employ going forward.
I fully believe the new standard will be for owners to push the employees to the exchanges. Pressure to provide insurance (in the past) had been from two points directions; 1- the desire to benefit the employee and 2- competition for the better employee. What we see larger size companies taking advantage if lower hours eliminating the required costs for a all vs the providing for the ones owners deem worthy.
New world will be where small to medium size employers will cease providing insurance as a benefit because as you have said it no longer sets them apart and there is no residual value.

Totally agree with the criminal background check. not just a right but practically a necessity. who would want to hire an embezzler to be your accountant, right? we get to check everything else on a resume’ or application, but not whether they broke the law? By the time an employer does the background check they have already passed the point of a judgement based on color, race, etc if in fact they were narrow minded enough to allow that to enter into their hiring decision.

Disagree on healthcare. everyone deserves it and while the current law sucks it was the best our representatives could come up with considering their primary objective is always political, not about the people they represent. A lot of great ideas were shot down based solely on rhetoric, unsupported assumptions and lies as facts. (BTW, i pay 90% of my employees’ healthcare)

John, loved your post. Here are a few more issues to factor in: most “customers” (folks who actually pay the bill) don’t see the doctor. Why? Because these customers are typically the employers and governments that are paying the insurance premiums. Only those few truly paying “cash” for services, or those in the “individual market,” where they’re paying their own premiums, are the true customers who have a better idea of the actual cost of healthcare.

Of course, the government, through the Affordable Care Act, is trying to give more individuals “greater access” to care. This in turn has accelerated another phenomenom: consolidation. As hospitals hire physicians directly, where they can, or indirectly through Foundations, in the states where they can’t, prices are going up – simply because hospital-based services receive a higher reimbursement.

The other trend we’re seeing is the increase in “direct pay/concierge” physicians. With rates typically starting at $2000/year and going up from there, these doctors “limit their panel” of patients they see, a win-win for the doctor (smaller patient panel for the same or more money) and the patients who can afford this perk (easier access). The only problem is – now that the doctor’s panel has decreased, let’s say, from 3000 to 600 patients – the 2400 Former Patients need to find a new doctor. Play this out, as we hear is happening in Massachusetts, and the unattended consequence of providing for greater access, is greater expense and/or longer waits to see your same (or a new) doctor.

Clearly we need to “bend the cost trend” to bring down the unsustainably growing high cost of healthcare. But who among the 18% making their living from this 18% of the GDP spent in healthcare (the ultimate “service” business), is going to “volunteer” to cut their compensation? After all, when you have burgeoning demand from the Medicare population (and the 10,000 Boomers a day joining it), and a society – starting with our children – increasingly prone to obesity and all its attendant ills, due to their eating/lack of exercise choices, what “magic bullet” is going to bend this trend?