Research by the California Health Care Foundation on potential strategies for covering the uninsured indicates that employer-sponsored plans and insurance pools don’t hold much promise. Two studies published by the Foundation provide details; both are worth reviewing.
The employer study looked at a multi-year experiment in San Diego wherein smaller employers’ health insurance plans were subsidized in an effort to encourage the employers to offer coverage. It turns out that many employers already offered insurance while those that did not were not often swayed by the subsidy. And, less than one-fifth of the state’s uninsureds were full time employees or dependents of full time employees.
The evaluation of health insurance pools is somewhat more promising. The net is these require extensive planning, careful implementation, and thorough management if they are to be effective. In addition, market considerations such as competitive plans, the cohesiveness of pool members, and demographics have considerable impact.
The net – creating a successful pool is a time-consuming, detail-intensive effort.
What does this mean for you?
While the studies are not exactly encouraging, at least we have a better grasp of the challenges associated with these two popular ideas. Perhaps we are getting closer to understanding what might work to improve coverage.
Nov
30
I love CHCF and Kronick is a smart guy, but didn’t RWJ run a study proving this about 15 years ago? And duh! Small businesses paying minimum wage with part time workers and a rotating work force wont give health insurance until the subsidy exceeds the cost of the insurance, until they are forced to (or taxed to). Meanwhile the price effect means that they will be dropping insurance on balance.
And of course pools go into a death spiral unless they are very big and very regulated, like say, the UK or Japan!
joseph-
this is a question, rather than a posting.
in your issue of 6/24/05 you indicated that WC costs have inflated by 9.8% since 1999.
do you have a source that provides further detail on these trends, including the inflation rates for various medical components,i.e. hospital, physicians, pharmacy,etc. ( all in the WC arena).
thanks for any assistance you may provide.
jake
re: the California studies, in New England these tepid or poor results add fuel to the idea of mandatory coverage. This is different from mandatory coverage AND single payer. But it does mean a lot of regulation and that worries me. But what worries me most is the terrible experience in the competitive market place in both expanding coverage and managing towards quality.