Despite intense cost pressures, firms covering more than 90% of the nation’s workforce view health benefits as an important tool to attract and retain qualified workers, according to a study by researchers at the Center for Studying Health System Change and The Commonwealth Fund published in Health Affairs. Firms employing two-thirds of all workers, including those that do not offer health benefits, agreed that “all employers should share in the cost of health insurance for employees, either by covering their own workers or by contributing to a fund to cover the uninsured,” the study found.
Many employers were willing to undertake administrative changes designed to expand coverage. For example, four-fifths of firms stated they were very or somewhat willing to reduce an eligible employee’s withholding tax by the amount of any available health insurance tax credit. Half of firms were interested in a program that would allow their workers and dependents to obtain coverage through their state’s public employee insurance program, with the employer contributing part of the premium. With respect to quality improvement, 63% of employers offering health benefits were very or somewhat interested in offering workers high-performance provider networks, even if it meant limiting the number of network providers.
When asked about the most effective way to reduce administrative costs, small employers were somewhat more focused on immediate relief from costs, and large employers were more focused on achieving efficiency through standardization. For example, small employers were more likely to say that joint purchase of health insurance by employers and public insurance programs would be most beneficial in reducing administrative costs. Large firms were more likely to say that universally accepted quality performance measures for providers would be most beneficial in lowering costs.
