Question

COMPENSATION & BENEFITS:

Identify the topic below give an example of the reason for choosing (Employee Benefits- Healthcare), provide a short description of the specific aspects of the topic (Impact of rising healthcare costs, changes in healthcare costs, and national healthcare issues)

Employee Benefits- Healthcare

Impact of rising healthcare costs, changes in healthcare coverage offered by employers, national healthcare issues

Answer 1

Two recent NBER studies show that higher health insurance prices do more than increase the number of uninsured individuals, showing how the aim of the health care reform draws a broader base. They increase unemployment, drive more workers to part-time employment and force workers to sacrifice wages and other benefits so as to retain a degree of coverage.

NBER associates, Katherine Baicker and Amitabh Chandra, observed from The Labor Market Impacts of Increasing Health Insurance Premiums (NBER Working Paper No. 11160) that since 2000 workers ' health insurance premiums have risen by 59 percent, far beyond wage gains. For example, between 2003 and 2004 alone, premiums went up by 11.2 percent while wages increased only 2.3 percent.

Our analysis shows the employees ' heavy toll on these changes. Each 10% increase in health insurance costs reduces the likelihood of jobs by 1.6%. It also reduces working hours by 1%, as employers react to higher health costs by converting jobs for full-time to part-time jobs, the majority of which do not include health benefits. Among health insurance workers, rates of benefits are largely raising from their salaries: the rises in premiums of 10 per cent are balanced by a decline of 2,3 per cent in incomes.

The writers note that low-wage hourly workers are particularly vulnerable, as employers are constitutionally prohibited from cutting wages in order to compensate for an increase in health premiums. Alternatively, they can only decide to drop coverage. Baicker and Chandra estimate that' staff who get paid less than $8 an hour a hour an hour would miss out on the rise in rates.' "A tenpercent increase in health insurance premiums indicates that the chance of health insurance coverage is decreased by 3.8 percent for hourly workers.

There were two causes of this massive increase: government policy and lifestyle changes.

1. First, the US depends on private health insurance funded by the government. The government has developed programs for those without insurances, such as Medicare, and Medicaid. Such initiatives also increased demand for services in health care. This allowed suppliers to increase prices. A study from Princeton University found that Americans use the same amount of healthcare as people from other countries. You're just spending time. Of starters, the costs of US hospitals are 60% higher than in Europe. Instead, government reform efforts and cost reductions increased them.
2. Furthermore, medical diseases have risen, including diabetes and heart disease. They account for 85 percent of the costs of healthcare. At least one of them is present in almost half of all Americans. They are costly and hard to deal with. The sickest 5% of the nation thus bear 50% of the total cost of the health care. The most safe 50% pay just 3% of the health care costs of the world. The bulk of these doctors are registered with Medicaid. The American medical profession is trying to save life heroically.However, it is costly. Medicare expenditure is six times higher than the average for patients in the last year of life. Care costs one-quarter of Medicare's budget for these patients. Such people attend the doctor's office 29 times on average in their last six months of life. Half of them go to the emergency room during their last month of life. In the intensive care unit there is a third force. One half is run on.

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