NATIONAL REPORTS – Family premiums for employer-sponsored health insurance increased 119% between 1999 and 2008, and could increase another 94%
to an average $23,842 per family by 2020 if the current trend continues, according to the Commonwealth Fund.
Its recent report shows that national reforms to slow healthcare cost increases by 1% to 1.5% per year would yield substantial
savings for families and businesses across the country. By 2020, slowing the annual rate of growth by 1% would yield more
than $2,500 in reduced premiums for family coverage, and slowing growth by 1.5% would yield more than $3,700 in premium savings
compared with projected trends.
Cyndy Nayer, CEO, the Center for Health Value Innovation, says the cost increases are often due to poor outcomes and use of
services needed to fix the problems that result when early detection and compliance to treatment are ignored.
"What was already a growing problem has been heightened in this economic instability," Nayer tells MANAGED HEALTHCARE EXECUTIVE.
"Fewer people are managing their chronic care well; they are not filling prescriptions, not getting prevention exams and generally
not taking good care of their health." In the case of asthma, for example, that means more emergency room visits, more rescue treatments and more missed days of
work, which affects the total costs to the system.
"And the cost shifting to employees that many companies have used has neither held down costs nor created a healthier level
of consumerism," she says.
Building plans and incentives that encourage people to manage their health better—a value-based design—has been shown to decrease
health cost trends up to 40%, and, in some cases, even more, according to Nayer.
"We have evidence, and it keeps coming in, that value-based designs—focusing on access and affordability—deliver on the promise
of improved health status and bending the financial trend."
