S&S Benefits.....Opinion, Hearsay & News Review

While the health care reform bills appeared to be stalled due to the election of a Republican to the Senate to take Teddy Chappaquidick’s former seat, Obama has said he is not dropping the issue (although he waited until the 53^rd paragraph of the State of the Union speech). Pelosi has indicated that if the Senate can make a few adjustments to their version of reform, she can find enough votes to pass the bill using reconciliation as a means to passage.  So, while polling may indicate that most Americans are against these “reforms”, Congress and the President apparently do not believe that the people should have any say in what is best for them.

Mercer’s 2009/2010 Compensation survey reports that only 14% of employers are planning across the board wage freezes for 2010. The average increase in wages is expected to be 2.7%, as opposed to 3.2% in 2009.

Health insurer’s net income fell by 12.4% ($8.2 billion) in the third quarter of 2009. Health benefit payments jumped by 6.9% and net profits averaged 2.4%.

The EBRI reports that worker’s median tenure at their job is 5.1 years as of 2008. Not much has changed in the last 25 years since the median tenure was 5 years in 1983.

 From September 2008 to September 2009, the top 8 medical insurance carriers saw an aggregate decline of 1.7 million members, which amounts to a 1.3% drop in enrollment. There were an additional 860,000 in member losses from the third to the 4^th quarters in 2009. Only one of the top eight insurance carriers (Humana) had any improvement in net profit from 2008 to 2009.

Wellpoint did report a profit in the 4^th quarter due to the sale of their NextRx unit to Express Scripts. However, their enrollment fell 3.9%.The Wellpoint loss ratio went from 83.4% a year earlier to 84.8%.

The Hay Group says that average premium increases in 2010 will be 9%. In 2009, 11% of employer groups paid the full premium for single coverage and 4% of employers paid the full premium for family coverage. That is a drop of 38% since 1990. When employee contributions are required, employees pay an average of 20% for single coverage and 25% of the cost of family coverage.

A Buck survey of trend has PPO trend at 11.1%, POS at 10.9%, HMO at 10.3% and High Deductible Consumer Driven plans at 10.3%. Average prescription drug trend was 10.9%. The numbers contrast a little with Segal’s trend survey we reported on last month. ….To repeat…..The Segal 2010 trend survey pegs PPO trend at 10.6% without Rx. Dental PPO is at 5.5% with indemnity dental at 6.2%. Rx trend is 9.1% and HMO trend is 10.2% with HDHPs at 11.9%. Segal’s survey numbers regarding HDHP’s would seem to be more reflective of the actual leveraging of trend in HDHP plans. Expect to see trend numbers go up due to mandated benefits such as mental health parity.