Wellness Driven Health Plans: The Bold New Cure for Dallas Fort Worth Texas Group Health Insurance Inflation

For any Dallas Fort Worth employer, whether a small company or big business, the continuous rise in group health insurance premiums is a critical issue.  Like the weather in North Texas, everyone complains about it, but noone knows seems to know what can be done to stop the rate increases which continue to out-pace inflation.  This post will show forward thinking business leaders in Dallas Fort Worth, Texas how to take positive action to reduce health care benefits costs permanently and have a healthy and productive workforce.

One week you read that Mercedes AG is willing to virtually give away its Chrysler division because of unfunded health care liabilities.  The next week you read that Starbucks spends more on employee health insurance than coffee beans.  As a business owner or CEO, whether in the cities of Dallas or Fort Worth Texas or one of the big suburbs like Irving, Richardson or Plano, you're probably worried about whether you can continue to afford group health insurance for your employees, and whether you will be able to retain your your key employees if you reduce or drop coverage.

A Bold Approach for CEOs to Reduce Benefits Costs and Increase Employee Productivity.

If you are a president or CEO and this post speaks to your concerns, then read this entire post for a bold but simple new solution to this problem, and challenge your human resources person to give it full consideration.  Unlike other approaches,  this approach offers a permanent solution that reduces the cost of health insurance premiums, but significantly reduces the cost of lost wages and productivity due to sickness.

Political Platforms For Solving the Wrong Health Care Problem

The "solutions" proposed by politicians from Democrats and Republicans won't do this, they just shift who pays for health care.  Neither party's plans do anything to lower health insurance and health care costs.

The Republicans, both Bush and leading presidential candidates like Rudolph Giulaini call for an expansion of consumer-driven health plans and tax breaks like health savings accounts.  The concept behind consumer driven health plans is that if an employer shifts more of the cost of health insurance and health care to the employee in the form of higher deductibles and an elimination of artificially low copays for doctor visits and medications, then the employees in the plan will avoid unnecessary doctor visits and become better shoppers to find lower cost health care, since they are responsible for more of the cost.

Democrats, including the leading candidates in the 2008 elections, have various proposals that range from nationalized health care or mandatory health insurance for all citizens, with public subsidies for those who cannot afford it.   Part of the thinking here is that by covering most of the 42 million uninsured Americans, rates could be reduced, since those healthcare costs are borne by private and public hospitals, and the expenses covered by the rates hospitals charge those with insurance and by taxpayer subsidies.

As often occurs in American politics, two radically different  ideologies offering two totally different solutions to absolutely the wrong problem, but intended to gather votes.

Real, Actionable Solutions to Health Insurance Inflation that Dallas Fort Worth , Texas CEOs Can Implement Now

Whether you are a business owner in Arlington or a CEO in Denton, there is a solution to runaway group health insurance costs that you can implement now without any "help" from government or politicians.  This solution is perfectly legal, simple to implement, and while there is plenty of documentation about how much it can save your employees, when you understand it, you'll wonder why you your employee benefits consultant or group benefits broker has not proposed it.

 

Page 1 2 3 4 5