High Cost of Healthcare Essay example

Employers are continuing to face rising health benefit costs and are constantly looking for alternatives to control these escalating costs. Health benefit premiums continue to increase at a double digit pace for employers and employees (Poor, Ross & Tollen, 2004). This escalation is putting environmental pressures on all impacted stakeholders. Companies and insurance providers are squeezing this industry to get a handle on cost while still providing an appropriate level of care. This cycle puts the patient front and center as the ultimate stakeholder who incurs changes in health benefits. This mandate of cost control, efficient operations and market share has facilitated a constant analysis of the dynamic health

When you look over your health insurance choices this year, there will be an option to select high-deductible health plan on the menu. These types of healthcare plans are increasingly becoming popular amongst healthcare seekers and consumers. So, why would anyone choose an insurance policy with greater out-of-pocket costs? Plans with higher deductibles typically have lower premiums, so you'll keep more of your paycheck. A High Deductible Health Plan (HDHP) is a plan that has a higher annual deductible than a typical health insurance plan; maximum limit on the sum of the annual deductible and out-of-pocket medical expenses that an enrollee must pay for covered expenses. The out-of-pocket expenses for a High Deductible Health Plan are

Greater than 150 million workforces, pensioners and their household members receive their healthcare through occupation-based coverage, which, in accordance with the AFL-CIO, is the foundation of this nation state health care coverage and financing. Approximately one-third of occupation-based coverage comes through coalition-negotiated strategies. (The AFL-CIO, n.d.)

About 171 million people or two-thirds of Americans that have health insurance have it through their employers (Carmen DeNavas-Walt, Bernadette D. Proctor and Jessica C. Smith). Given that a majority of employees receive their health care benefits through their employers, it could be beneficial to look at how the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act effects businesses, specially the small businesses. Changes to this act need to be made to make the cost of coverage affordable for both businesses and employees while maintaining fairness.

Similar to the discontinuity of care, the employment-based nature of the health insurance system of the United States poses a major problem for the effectiveness of the health care safety net. In this system, one can be a highly responsible working adult and find that one cannot obtain health care for one’s family. With the increasing cost of health care and inflation in medicine, employers are forcing

• That equates to the employee paying $12,881 more, than what they pay with employee funded health care coverage

A reversal of the health care cost curve as a result of slower growth in healthcare spending promises to create employment opportunities for many Americans. According to Fiedler (2013), America has, since enactment of the PPACA, experienced a relatively slower growth in healthcare costs compared to the years before its enactment. This has meant that employers have incurred lower healthcare benefit costs, a factor that has increased most firms’ incentives to employee more individuals thus contributing to greater employment opportunities for Americans. Howard (2011) also notes that slowing down the rate at which insurance premiums are increased by insurance firms for employer-based healthcare insurance coverage has the potential to allow employers to shift their firms’ scarce resources to other areas such as employment creation and/or an

In the United States today, at any given time, there are more than forty-one million people who are without health insurance. The United States Government actuaries states that the healthcare spending in the U.S. will double by 2015-to-more than 12,300 per person and account for 20 percent of the nations GDP. U.S. healthcare costs have made health insurance too expensive for many employers to offer health insurance. Health coverage alone is taking away more than a quarter of worker’s earnings. Fewer employers are offering health insurance in America. Under President Obama, the current administration firmly believes that comprehensive reform should reduce long-term growth of health care costs for businesses and government, protect

Most families can’t afford to have kids because money is short or they can’t afford medicaid, They can get prenatal care, Prenatal care is medical care you get during pregnancy. No Co-Pay means you would not have to pay your health provider each time you have a prenatal check up.

American people look at their insurance bills, co-pays and drug costs, and can't understand why they continue to increase. The insured should consider all of these reasons before getting upset. In 2004, employee health care premiums increased over 11 percent, four times more than the rate of inflation.

Rising health care cost has challenged organizational leaders to develop new strategies and initiatives to reduce cost. New initiatives are important because the rising health care cost often interferes with an organization's ability to make a profit or stay in business (Littler, 2007). Possible initiatives for combating rising health care cost could be shifting all responsibility to employees or redesigning the benefit where both parties share the responsibility. Some organizational leaders have chosen the strategy of shifting costs to employees over redesigning their benefits system to combat rising health care cost (Larsen & Pomeranz, 2009). The redesigning of the system could include dropping health insurance coverage for employees (Blumenthal,

In this next paragraph we will talk about federal health reform’s impact on employer-sponsored health insurance. Employers now aren’t very sure how they are going to provide health insurance. They are trying to decide whether to go off of the plan they have at this moment or make a new plan. Most of their decisions are going come from the Hawaii experience where they are testing the employer based system. Overall they are going to have to follow the guidelines of the Patient Protection Affordable Care Act before making any major decisions. The purpose of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 is to cut down the number of uninsured Americans in the United States by making coverage more affordable and more effective. In 2009, 59% of young Americans had employer sponsored health insurance and another 13.8% had private health insurance. Private insurance is when an individual goes to a company and buys health insurance rather than having it supplied with their job. The uninsured were 18.9% of the population under the age of 65 years old. I believe that the reason the number of uninsured people is as high

Healthcare today is a very important issue. Lack of health insurance can affect the health and productivity of workers. Many people today do not have health insurance. Employment-based health insurance is in high demand to retain employees. The high healthcare costs make it hard for employers to offer employees quality health plans. The premiums for employers are increasing so they are forced to opt for cost-saving health insurance plans. Consumer-driven health plans are on the rise and have become an option for many employers.

           Healthcare is expensive and Americans want the best possible healthcare they can get. Consumers are demanding more tests, better drugs and insurance coverage. Americans desire a high quality of life and insurers/employers are trying to provide the means, but cost effectively and without raising costs. In order to do this, “consumers will have to make more decisions, pay more and perhaps demand greater value” (Barr, Paul).

America has a bleak outlook towards the costs associated with employee turnover, productivity decline, and increased employee healthcare costs due to chronic health care conditions. The cost of healthcare is increasing, and employers typically bear the brunt of these costs. Employers also face financial loss in regards to productivity decline and retention. In a Rand report, commissioned by the U.S. Government and compiled, by Matke and others, showed that the cumulative losses of all three domains associated with chronic