DID YOU KNOW?
"Employer costs for insurance benefits -- life, health, and disability -- averaged $2.34 per hour (8.3 percent of total compensation). Paid leave benefits (vacations, holidays, sick leave, and other leave) averaged $1.96 (7.0 percent); retirement and savings averaged $1.24 (4.4 percent); and supplemental pay averaged 72 cents (2.6 percent) per hour worked." (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics)
Source: U.S. Department of Labor
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Copyright 2008 The Benefit Services Group, Inc. BSG® is a registered trademark of The Benefit Services Group, Inc.
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Employer Health Insurance Costs and Worker Compensation
March 2008 - Kaiser Family Foundation
"Health insurance premiums have increased rapidly over the recent past, growing a cumulative 78 percent between 2001 and 2007 and far outpacing cumulative wage growth of 19 percent over the same period. These figures, which have been widely cited to demonstrate the growing burden of health insurance costs on employers and employees, illustrate overall trends in health benefit costs, but they do not show how this growing burden is affecting employers and employees in different settings. To address this issue, this analysis shows employer costs for payroll and health benefits over a six-year period for workers in different occupations and at different establishment sizes." (Kaiser Family Foundation)
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E-health consortium hopes second time is the charm for patient data repository plan
March 11, 2008 - Computer World
EXCERPT: Patients will also be able to use the system to compare costs and medical-outcome histories at different hospitals, based on the medical records of other individuals who agree to let their data be searched anonymously, Hammond said. That should help to "materially" reduce overall health care costs, he added.
The system being built by Dossia "is sort of like a virtual shoe box that you can save all your medical records in and cart around with you," Hammond said. "We've left this [data] in the hands of medical professionals for so long. We need to give some of that control back to [patients.]"
Read Entire Article
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Medical Tourism Is Area of Interest for Entrepreneurs, Insurance Companies and Advisers, But Will Employers Make the Leap?
Excerpt: "The medical tourism industry continues to mature, sprouting all the attendants of a healthy market - a myriad of professional conferences, trade groups and of course dedicated media. Despite the buzz, many continue to look for more concrete evidence validating the movement, namely employers and employees embracing the prospect of traveling to foreign lands in pursuit of quality care at lower prices." (Employee Benefit Advisor; free registration required)
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Re-Examining The Health Saving Account: Not Just For The Healthy, Wealthy
February 2008 - Insurance News Net
While Pricewater-houseCoopers predicted that 2007 would be the "tipping point" for consumer-driven health plans (CDHPs),1 such as Health Savings Accounts, adoption of HSAs has been slower than expected - despite mounting evidence that the plans are extremely cost effective. Read Entire Article
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