Mr. Robert Andrews Discusses Self-Insured Employer Health Plan Efforts to Address Healthcare Affordability

About this episode

Mr. Robert Andrews discusses the challenges and efforts of self-insured employer health plans in addressing healthcare affordability amidst rising costs and market concentration.

Not surprisingly healthcare affordability has risen to the top or #1 mid-term election campaign issue. Largely due to pricing failure, that costs Americans about $250 billion annually, pricing power is the consequence of an increasingly concentrated healthcare market. Think: Herfindahl-Hirschman Index scores. Hospital pricing/prices are particularly noteworthy or moreover surgical procedures and patented drugs that have risen at multiples of the annual inflation. This means those insured pay increasingly higher coverage (premiums, deductibles, copays) and are forced into medical debt or bankruptcy, forced to avoid necessary care and/or make financial trade offs. Insurance plans, here we’re discussing self-insured employee plans, that capture roughly 65% of covered workers, face similarly challenging math. For example, recently reported news found the five largest managed care plans lost $226 billion in market value over the previous 12 months. As for solutions, federal price transparency laws, though well intended, have either gone un-headed and/or lack enforcement. Mr. Robert Andrews is the CEO of the Health Transformation Alliance (HTA), a cooperative of approximately 80 large…

People in this episode

Host: David Introcaso, Ph.D.

Guest: Mr. Robert Andrews

Topics covered

• healthcare affordability
• self-insured employer health plans
• pricing power
• market concentration
• federal price transparency laws
• medical debt
• managed care plans

Keywords

• healthcare costs
• insurance premiums
• deductibles
• copays
• medical bankruptcy
• managed care
• price transparency
• Herfindahl-Hirschman Index

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Health Transformation Alliance, American Express, Macy’s, Verizon, Caterpillar

Places: United States

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