Medical care costs to spike – how can companies keep their health expenses down?

Most small and medium size employers have been thoroughly indoctrinated into a mindset that paying insurance premiums to companies like Blue Cross is the best and safest way to pay for everything from basic healthcare and prescription. When presented alternatives to the above described approach that positions them to “self-fund,” they often reject it out of hand because of the fear-mongering that is packaged by the insurance companies and their representatives. The actual fiscal reality is that no matter what labels are created to describe various policy frameworks (fully funded, level funded, self-funded, etc.) Every plan is self-funded to a point and “fully insured” past that point.

As a result, the attached article that we received caught my interest titled “Medical Care Costs to Spike – How Can Companies Keep Their Health Expenses Down?” The articled was written by Gia Snape and predicts that “amid record inflation rates, medical care costs are expected to surge even further…” They say “hospital and health systems are projected to raise their rates by as much as 15%…”

This is exactly what we have been advocating for years against the headwinds of health insurance industry bullying and fees mongering. This is exactly how the pharmacy component should be set up to bypass PBM’s. Unfortunately, too few true, high-level insurance decision makers take the time to learn what the actual underlying dynamics of how health insurance costs are developed. the result is just more of the same, higher than necessary expenses for middlemen.

– Howard Danzig, President of The ECCHIC Group