S&S Benefits.....Opinion,
Hearsay & News Review
According to a study of
chronically ill Medicare beneficiaries in the two last years of their life
published by The Journal of Health Affairs, there was no link between the
quality of care and the cost of care from 2,172 unidentified hospitals. The
patients all had one of three common conditions: heart attack, pneumonia or
congestive heart failure. The spending average of the bottom 20% of the
hospitals for end of life care was $16,059 and was $34,742 for the top 20% of
the highest spending hospitals.
The National Business Group on
Health surveyed 1500 employees working at large companies: 27% decided against
seeking health services to avoid making co-payments or paying coinsurance. 20%
said they skipped taking Rx medication. 52% said they are making a healthier
lifestyle more of a priority and 72% said they have become more aware of the
total cost of health care in the last year.
The time that physicians,
nurses and other staff spend interacting with insurers costs an average of
$68,274 per physician per year according to a story published in Health Affairs.
The average time spent was 4.3 hours per week, so that makes the average cost of
the time just over $305 per hour per physician. Just wait until they have to
deal with government plans and regulators.
Towers Perrin and Watson Wyatt
are merging into Towers Watson in an equity transaction worth approximately $3.5
billion.
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newsletter, please email jseiler@ssbenefits.net
The Congressional Budget
Office released a health reform study in December 2008 that clearly shows that
insurance companies spend 51% less on administration than government does on its
health care programs. The study used CMS data and shows that private insurance
will spend $879 billion, of which 87.3% is paid to providers. The 12.3% spent on
administration includes government mandated taxes and assessments. If you take
away the taxes the figure would reduce to less than 10%. The government uses
government agencies to administer its internal programs of Medicaid, CHIP, VA,
etc.-except Medicare. These internal programs will spend $691 billion with $180
billion (26%) going to administrative costs. Another item pointed out in the
same study was that while private insurance companies pay for advertising and
premium collection, the government cost of collecting Medicare premiums through
the IRS was not calculated (which would make government expenses even higher).
So the next time you see a politician saying that the government will save money
by involving itself with health care administration and making it more
streamlined, you can now just stand up and call that person a liar.
Illinois
just gave a nice new tax to fully insured employers. For policies renewed on or
after June 1, 2009, insurance contracts must cover unmarried adult children as
dependents until age 26, regardless of student status. Military personnel are
also eligible to be added if they are unmarried and under the age of 30.
A survey by Partnership for
Workplace Mental Health of 143 employers says that 74% of those employers are
not dropping mental health benefits due to the Mental Health Parity Law that
takes effect January 2010.
House Democrats have released
their draft of health reform legislation that includes a public plan option and
an 8% payroll tax on those employers who don’t offer health insurance. Aside
from disruption of a system that covers 160 million people who receive benefits
through their employers, the use of a public plan option is just the beginning
of rationing as a means of controlling costs. Unwittingly, the President said so
himself in his ABC network kiss up festival. The news stories never focus on the
fact that all but 15% of the current population has health coverage and many of
those that don’t have coverage, have chosen that option for themselves or are
people who are in the
USA
illegally. The misguided Democrats also believe that their focus on preventive
benefits and wellness delivered through primary care physicians will save money
that is not being saved in today’s private plans. They completely ignore the
fact that most private insurance has covered those benefits for years. Yep,
primary care and wellness sure saved HMOs a lot of money. So much so, that most
of them are now out of business. To top things off, the current Baucus plan
would tax health care benefits received by workers, but exempt union employees
from the tax!

HAVE A SAFE AND HAPPY
INDEPENDENCE
DAY!! ENJOY IT WHILE YOU STILL CAN!