OAK BROOK, Ill. -- As President Barack Obama marked his first 100 days in office last week, one area of concern is where money will come from for health-care reform. Although a recent speech promised "new investments in health care that will cut costs for families and businesses," plans that are being considered include taxing employer-provided health benefits as taxable income or restricting the tax deduction that companies take for offering health-care benefits, according to Time magazine.
Despite concerns about rising health-care costs and where the money [image-nocss] will come from, convenience-store retailers have continued their efforts to offer insurance to employees. According to the NACS Convenience & Petroleum Retailing Compensation Report of 2008 Industry Data, of the 137 companies that participated, 89% indicated that they offered medical coverage to employee--and 74% said that they offered dental.
And according to a study from The Kaiser Family Foundation, the bigger the company, the more likely they are to choose a high-deductible health plan with a savings option (HDHP/SO) as their insurance offering.
The study found that 22% of companies with 1,000 or more workers offered such plans, also known as consumer-driven plans. This compared to 13% of companies with three to 199 workers and 15% of firms with 200 to 999 workers.
In such plans, the employees use the savings accounts to control their own health-care spending. "If we're ever going to get a handle on the high cost of our health insurance or our health-care bill, every American has to treat every dollar spent as if it was their own money, because it is. We pay our premiums, we pay our taxes and workers earn their benefits as surely as they've earned their wages," Allen Wishner, CEO of Rosemont, Ill.-based Flexible Benefit Service Corp. told CSP Daily News.
Click the Download Now button below to view and weigh the positives, negatives and potential costs to employers for HDHP/SO, limited benefit plans, HMO, PPO and more. And for more information about providing health-care insurance, watch for the "To Your Health" health feature in the May issue of CSP magazine.
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