Just one percent of large employers plan to stop providing their health benefits to their workers this year and just five percent will “exit health care completely” in three to five years as companies deal with new rules under the Affordable Care Act, according to a new national survey of employer health care strategies.
Though these generally large employers with 500 or more workers plan on keeping benefits for their workers, they are changing the way those benefits are delivered to employees in the future, according to
“Employers remain committed to providing health benefits, but recognize the need for new approaches that fix those problems,” says Jim Winkler, Aon Hewitt’s chief innovation officer for health and benefits.
The Aon Hewitt survey of more than 1,230 employers who provide coverage for more than 10 million employees shows companies are looking to shift more costs to workers via a so-called “house money/house rules” approach. This means almost 40 percent of employers in the survey are requiring employees to take a more active role in their health via various initiatives to reduce costs and improve worker health such as participating in a biometric screening to get a lower premium or access to richer coverage.
Another one-third of employers plan to move their workers to a private exchange within three to five years.
Under the private exchange approach, employers decide on a subsidy or credit that each worker will get to purchase coverage. Then, the employees take to the exchange to select their coverage. The subsidy will vary from employer to employer.
Aon Hewitt has described its exchange will turn “selecting health benefits into a retail shopping experience” akin to
For example, more than 600,000 workers from 18 employers such as
“Traditional cost management tactics do not address foundational issues in health care, including worsening population health and misaligned provider payment methodologies,” Winkler said.
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