Nearly 3,500 Rhode Island employers are being polled, in detail, about the health benefits they provide, the cost, and the age, gender and unionization profile of their workers to help build a foundation for Health Insurance Commissioner Christopher F. Koller’s future efforts.
In a letter to the employers selected for the survey – a cross section of the private sector, with three to thousands of workers – Koller said his goal is to build “the most comprehensive and up-to-date” report on employer-based health coverage in the state.
For the state, the survey would provide baseline data to guide public policy, Koller said. For employers, it’s a chance to get a sense of how their benefits compare to their competitors’, how good a deal they’re getting, whether the costs put as big a strain on them as on others, and how they could save money through new strategies.
Conducted by Boston research firm John Snow Inc., the survey looks at who’s eligible for coverage at each workplace, who accepts it, how much it costs, the use of cost-control strategies – deductibles, tiered prescription plans, etc. – and types of health plans offered.
Employers who don’t offer health insurance, for their part, are asked why. And all companies are asked to suggest policy changes that would help make coverage more affordable.
“Many of you have told me that controlling health care costs while maintaining coverage is your top business concern,” Koller wrote on the cover letter. “Your input is vital to the development of new strategies for reducing the cost of health care coverage.”
Koller’s is not the only survey addressing this issue right now. Within days, the state Department of Labor and Training plans to release the results of a survey of 1,999 employers – almost two-thirds replied – looking at health, dental and vision coverage, life insurance, tuition assistance, child-care subsidies, retirement benefits and paid leave.
And Mercer Human Resource Consulting this month issued a local version of its own annual health benefits survey, which is widely used across the United States.
Mercer’s Rhode Island sample was too small, report author Deb Wozniak said, to be scientifically reliable – though the 15 employers surveyed did include everything from a major university, to large and medium corporations, to small health centers and two retailers.
Still, Wozniak provided the data to show how Rhode Island fits into national and regional patterns. Workers are older – 41 years old on average, the same as New England as a whole, and 3 years above the national average – and far likelier to be unionized – 16 percent, compared with 10 percent in New England and 3 percent nationwide. Far more employers insure part-time workers – 80 percent in the state and New England, versus 30 percent nationally – and the majority offers same-sex domestic partner coverage.
Total health benefit costs in Rhode Island are higher than in the country as a whole: $7,787 per employee in 2004, compared with $7,681 in New England and $6,679 nationally. But while Rhode Island employers faced just slightly bigger cost hikes for 2005 than the national average – 10.4 percent versus 10.0 – they managed to reduce the hikes much more through plan and benefit changes, to 3.6 percent, while nationally, actual hikes were 6.6 percent.
When it comes to the ratio of benefits to payroll, Mercer found, the Rhode Islanders were almost in line with the nation: 12.5 percent vs. 12.3 percent nationally. In an unusual twist, however, the Rhode Island employers were far likelier to see “consumerism” as a key cost-saving strategy for the future, compared with 30 percent nationwide. And while nationally, only 16 percent of employers said they’d offer a consumer-driven health plan next year, 23 percent of the Rhode Island respondents said this.
The irony in the latter is that Rhode Island, at this point, is the only state where health savings accounts, a particularly popular “consumerism” tool, can’t be offered, because eligible plans would be illegal. A bill to make HSAs available here has slowly wound its way through the General Assembly, and was approved by the state Senate on Wednesday.
Meanwhile, prompted by Koller’s invitation to local businesses to get more involved in health policy-making, Mercer has enlisted more than 20 companies in a revived Rhode Island Business Group on Health to identify and promote employers’ concerns. The group is meeting for the second time today (June 20), with U.S. Rep. Patrick J. Kennedy.
