The Aging Workforce: Business Strategies Used by Employers

More and more people with medical insurance are relying on the health care system as new technologies and treatments become available. This leads to a grater number of claims for payment by insurance companies, the costs of which are passed back to health care consumers. The baby-boom generation is entering its peak health-care using period. Over eighty million Americans will turn 50 in the next 10 years. The cost of providing heath care for these individuals will be staggering

By the 1960s, the formation of unions help to standardized employer health benefits and the access to insurance was prevalent for workers. This system seemed to be well established as the employers, private health insurance carries, physicians and hospitals would recycle health cost amongst each other. However, there were many underlying problems with this tightly organized system. Self employed individuals, small companies, the poor, and the unemployed had no organized access to health insurance. Also, at this time the majority of elderly retirees lost their health insurance in old age when they needed it most. These underserved populations began to seek care in emergency facilities driving the cost of urgent care back on the hospital and

The cost of health insurance has changed drastically over the years as it has become more expensive. Depending on personal characteristic, the cost of health insurance may vary. For instance, as individuals grow older the more expensive it becomes. In this case, health insurance is more costly because “older individuals require more health care” therefore “the cost of providing health care is rising” (Madura &Atlantic, 2012). Not only does this affect the high cost of health insurance, but the number of individuals uninsured. As stated by Madura and Atlantic (2012), “about one in every five workers is uninsured” and has increased since then because health insurance has become unaffordable. As a result, individuals tend to seek health care elsewhere as they can no longer

With the aging society in America means that there will be larger number of older people than young people. As a result of this fewer people will have to pay taxes to support public necessities and there will be fewer young people to provide services for the elders. This will also highly affect the health care in America because many seniors will have a chronic illness and there will be a shortage of healthcare workers to assist them. This will affect retirement because retirement income is made up of welfare payments, savings, and public and private pensions. Most publicly financed retirement pensions are funded by programs or most commonly know, social security. Social security is a universal income support program for elders and is usually

Committee on Aging, United States Senate, 101st Cong. (1990). (Serial No. 101-J). Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.

The social security statement contains a year by year breakdown of a person’s earnings history, estimates for retirement, disability, survivor benefits, how much that was paid into social security, and medicare taxes. A person is able to access these statements by going to www. socialsecurity.gov, by creating an account. By signing up for an account a person can access other services provided by the social security agency such as, benefit verification, earning records, change address, phone number; and start or change direct

The hope is that young adults who are uninsured are between the ages of 18 and 34 who use fewer healthcare services, will pay lower premiums and use preventive health care services to lower their chances of needing high cost treatment in the future. The pooling of their premium payments is expected to take care of the healthcare cost of an elderly adult with multiple healthcare conditions that takes up

The costs of providing health coverage for employees are rising at such a high rate that many companies have begun asking employees to pay a greater share of the cost, or eliminate coverage entirely. Employers are raising the costs or eliminating

The main reason uninsured workers give for not taking up an offer of coverage is that the coverage is unaffordable. From 2006 to 2016, total premiums for family coverage has increased by 58%, and the worker’s share has increased by 78%, outpacing wage growth.

Many people are uninsured and under-insured due to the rising cost of health care. It is making it very difficult for working people to be able to afford healthcare. Although they are employed, but

The higher cost of affordable Health care is also eroding the ease with which to afford other insurance that covers about 30 percent of Medicare enrollees ‘expenses. In 2005, about 89 percent of beneficiaries obtained such additional coverage, including through former employers (33 percent), medical policies (25 percent), Medicare advantage plans (13 percent), Medicaid (16 percent), or other programs (1 percent) (MedPAC). These supplemental insurance programs were all very helpful at the onset, but with the passage of time and as health care costs continued to rise, employers are finding it difficult to support these programs and as a consequence, a greater number of these employers are either reducing the benefit or eliminating these benefits especially those that affects their retirees thereby increasing the cost of these supplemental insurances.

2. William J. Rothwell, (2008): Working Longer, New Strategies for Managing, Training, and Retaining Older Employees. Amazon.com

Aging! We all do it every day, but have you ever thought how it is going to affect the rest of your life or more importantly your career? Aging isn’t something that we get to choose if we participate in, however working is, and aging may affect that choice. Right now, I want you to think about the age of sixty-five. What words pop into your head when you think of someone sixty-five? I’d imagine some of the words you thought of were retired, old, fragile, slow, as well as many others. Those words right there all help to explain the many concerns that one’s employer may have when hiring someone that is of the older population. When we think of the older population in the work force we don’t necessarily think of positive things, instead we think of things. When we think of this population in the workforce we generally think of lower production rates and higher costs. These can create issues among the older population, as employers must consider all the possibilities when hiring someone. We know that more people in the older population are continuing to try to continue their careers, but why? How hard is it for them to continue? What changes have made it easier? How are the younger and middle aged populations perceiving them in the work place? This are only some of the many question surrounding the increase of aged workers.

Aging population can be used as an advantage to increase economic rates growth by keeping them employed as long as possible (Nankervis et al. 2006, p.55). People who are working in a knowledge fields may increase their performance with age, however for more physical positions there is an opposite possibility of low performance with increasing age (Patrickson & Ranzijn, 2006). Consequently, specific jobs may have lack of professional employees. For example by separating workers and using older workers as experience type that can teach and train young employees, as well as use their knowledge will benefit organization in different departments. Also by using younger workers as routine workers or in more physical positions that are hard to perform for older employees will give them opportunity to earn more experience and will keep older employees working as well (Patrickson & Ranzijn, 2006). It is necessary for human resources to distribute their workforce accordingly and to provide required training for their young and old employees.

There is a spacious room for lemon in insurance field. The price for health insurance is not fixed, it varies based on the level of the need an applicant may require for the insurance. As in the case of elderly people over the age 65, it is well known that it is very difficult for them to get health insurance because of its high price as they certainly will need it more than other applicants. On the other hand, employees working in companies are offered health insurance as a part of the companies’ policies and regulations. This actually create more room for lemon in the insurance field and less chance for old people who need it more. This ended up with adverse selection by the insurance companies. (A.Akerlof, Aug