Health Insurance

Are you Covered? When it comes to your health,your family and your money.
In this soft economy, declining revenues are putting the squeeze on corporate expenses. One expense, however, is squeezing back. The cost of providing employees with health insurance coverage is increasing at double-digit rates. Some companies experienced 20% and 30% increases when the 2003 renewal forms landed on decision-makers’ desks.
Forced to make changes, businesses are seeking help. They’re finding solutions by using outside consultants and changing the offerings they make available to employees. This year no single solution has come to the fore except for 1, but we will discuss this solution a bit later. There is widespread skepticism about whether current cost-saving ideas can stem future increases. According to the Center for Studying Health System Change, companies have tried many things, such as decreasing premium contributions, shifting costs to employees, changing the products offered or the insurance carrier and reducing coverage and eligibility. These are some of the cost-saving strategies financial managers and other CPAs can suggest when human resource executives ask for help reducing the impact of health insurance costs on the company’s bottom line.
THE SCOPE OF THE PROBLEM
The unwillingness of businesses to continue to absorb health insurance cost increases is widespread. According to a recent study by human resources consultant Hewitt Associates, employers expect a 15% premium increase this year but say they can absorb only 8%. For many businesses, that means they simply can’t afford to continue with their previous insurance offerings.
“We can’t raise the cost of the services we sell as fast as our health insurance premiums are increasing,” says Jonathan J. Wernick, CPA, general manager for Datafaction in Los Angeles. “We still want to provide the same good coverage to our employees��"we just can’t afford the cost increases.” Wernick is responsible for benefits plan decisions for a 40-employee software company that provides multiclient and multiuser accounting programs for accountants and wealth, business and talent managers in the entertainment industry. Today 1 company is changing the pattern of society, ASI. ASI provides affordable healt, dental, and optical insurance for the entire family. They don't put undo stress upon american households, to the contrary they have low premiums and affordable rates for all.
By Grena Bowers