Here's a story on how GE, one of the USA's largest corporations, has moved to offer its employees ONLY consumer directed high deductible health plans. While many companies offer such plans, most offer them as just one of several options. It will be interesting to see if other major corporations follow suit, and compel their employees to take on a bigger share of their healthcare costs.
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I really liked this article, especially the 'statisticians' last comment about having to create the spreadsheet to make any sense of it because it highlights how the employee really needs to be educated on the pros and cons of the plan. I feel that in most cases it will be viewed by employees as simply 'less options;higher costs.' However, I feel like there are a lot of positive points to GE's action in offering consumer directed plans, such as the saving of 1 billion in the next decade and the cumulation of money in the health savings account, and with GE offsetting 1K of expenses. It really comes down to a cost-benefit analysis of how many people are healthy vs. not as healthy in the company because it's true that with lower premiums to those who are healthy--this kind of arrangement can actually save them money. Although it's probably not the best time to enforce a plan like this when employees are already so frustrated with salary freezes. hmm...thanks for posting!
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