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Tag: Health Care Costs

The Relative Contribution Of Multiple Determinants To Health Outcomes

A new Health Policy Brief from Health Affairs and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) examines factors that can contribute to health status. In the United States, less than 9 percent of health expenditures go to disease prevention, and there is little support for social services, such as programs for older adults, housing, and employment programs.

This brief focuses on “multiple determinant” studies that seek to quantify the relative influence of some of these factors on health. It is part of a larger project, supported by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, which aims to create a structure for conducting analyses that demonstrate the value of investments in nonclinical primary prevention and their impact on health care costs.

What’s the background?
As the brief explains, the literature on health determinants, which has grown over the past several decades, highlights five major categories: genetics, behavior, social circumstances, environmental and physical influences, and medical care. Since this is a relatively new area of inquiry, topics and approaches continue to evolve.

Read the full report here.

Contact Steven Cosby with questions or to request more information and to schedule a healthcare plan evaluation, savings analysis or group plan solution for your company.

Employers Take Wait-and-See Approach to Private Exchanges

Employers are making creative changes to employee benefit offerings to stem the tide of rising health care costs, but many are taking a wait-and-see approach to private exchanges, according to presenters at MetLife’s 10th National Benefits Symposium Monday.

Read full article here.

Contact Steven Cosby with questions or to request more information and to schedule a healthcare plan evaluation, savings analysis or group plan solution for your company.

2013 Health Care Costs Survey

This AARP survey looked at the public’s awareness and concern about health care costs that they may incur during retirement. It also sought to determine whether or not non-retired adults are currently saving to cover health care expenses in the future.

Key findings include:
Most individuals have not taken steps to plan for health care costs in retirement. Across age groups, only about one-third (36%) have tried to estimate how much money they will need to save and have set money aside to cover these expenses in the future. Adults age 60-64 (40%) are just slightly more likely than those age 50-59 (35%) to have money set aside although these differences are not statistically significant.

While most adults age 50-64 have given health care costs in retirement some level of thought, a smaller percentage is confident that they will be able to afford the costs. Two-thirds of respondents have thought about the costs at least somewhat but only 52% are confident they can afford the costs. In fact, less than two in ten (16%) are very confident that they can afford the costs of health care in retirement.

Estimates of the actual costs of health care in retirement vary significantly. More than four in ten adults age 50-64 (42%) believe they will need to accumulate less than $100,000 to cover out-of-pocket health care expenses during their retirement.

In addition, sixteen percent believe it will cost less than $50,000 and 15% say they simply do not know.

Read full research survey and fact sheet here:
2013 Health Care Costs Survey (Full Text, PDF)2013 Health Care Costs Factsheet (PDF)

ACA & Health Insurance Markets: Simulating the Effects of Regulation

The Affordable Care Act changes the rating regulations governing the nongroup and small group markets while simultaneously encouraging enrollment through a combination of subsidies, tax credits, and tax penalties. In this report, the authors estimate the effects of the Affordable Care Act on health insurance enrollment and premiums for ten states (Florida, Kansas, Louisiana, Minnesota, New Mexico, North Dakota, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, and Texas) and for the nation overall, with a focus on outcomes in the nongroup and small group markets.

The authors also consider the implications of two decisions confronting states: whether to expand their Medicaid programs to cover all adults with incomes below 138 percent of the federal poverty level and whether to merge or combine their small group and nongroup risk pools. The authors conclude that the Affordable Care Act will lead to an increase in insurance coverage and higher enrollment in the nongroup market.

However, data limitations and uncertainties about insurer behavior make estimates uncertain, particularly when considering outcomes for the nongroup market. They find that the law has little effect on small group premiums and find large variation in the effects for nongroup premiums across states. The analysis suggests that comparisons of average premiums with and without the Affordable Care Act may overstate the potential for premium increases.

Read the full report here.