Providing health insurance for employees

[Barb Pelton]

What share of the premiums do you pay on your employees?

I put a fair amount of effort earlier this year to provide health insurance for my employees. I worked with my long-time agent to find a couple of different plans to offer the employees, and he came up with 3 different plans at varied costs and benefits.

None of my employees elected to take the health insurance. I had it planned that I would pay half and the other half would be held out of their paychecks.

I have raises coming due for 2 of the employees soon, and I thought I'd once again offer the insurance options at the same time.

I'd really like to continue adding benefits in order to attract better candidates for employment in the future, and I'm willing to make some immediate sacrifices to accomplish this goal. All suggestions welcomed!

[katman]

I pay 100 percent. It's a good policy with $10 co-pay. Cost to me is about $175/month for each of the two employees--well one now cause the other got married and moved to Hawaii. Price was low cause they both are young--25. I'm not covered under the shop policy. Rate would be significatly higher with an old fart like me addded.

They wanted insurance so I started the plan when raises were due. Told them to view the insurance as part of their compensation. At raise time I let them know how much the insurance has gone up so I can tell them their total pay increase on an hourly basis.

We renew in July. I suspect this year we will be discussing employee contributions or very small salary adjustments.

[wpfay]

Barb,
The employees may not see the long term benefits as being that important to them. Taking anything from their paycheck might infringe on things they had planned for that money. Unfortunately a lot of people don't realize the value of health insurance until it's too late.

I do not offer health insurance to my only employee, but he was aware of that when he took the job on a temporary basis over 3 years ago. Since then he has had to pay for surgery to repair a torn Achilles tendon, and even though I helped him cover the cost of therapy, it just about put him in bankruptcy. Now that he realize the value of insurance he is having a hard time getting any health coverage.

I would say that you have gone above and beyond to offer your employees a source of heath coverage and offer to shoulder some of the financial burden. Not even Blue Cross offers health insurance to their employees at no cost (Ellen works as an auditor in "Small Group" for BCBS/Fla. and I have absorbed some knowledge of the system through osmosis). We pay a portion of the cost and the rest, though it is payed by BCBS, is accounted for as part of her compensation package...there is no opting out and taking the cash.

Good luck. Your offer is but a microcosm of the problems suffered by the whole system. Perhaps if you can solve your's, you can offer insight on the solution to the overall problem.

[gemsmom]

We pay 80 percent. My husband is an insurance broker. I asked him what the average employer contribution is, and he said the contributions vary from company to company, but guessed it to average out to 70 percent.

I doubt that health insurance will up the quality of job seekers you'll get. You might be better off forgoing the insurance and use the money saved to offer more pay. That will probably be my strategy next time I go looking.

[EllenAtHowards]

We used to pay 100% when we started out. We weren't altruistic; it was cheaper to have a group policy than to have just Roger and me covered independently. However, our younger employee moved on and it raised our average age, which in turn raised our contribution. So we now deduct the difference between what we used to pay and what the rates have escalated to from the employees' paychecks (look at that! Two prepositions next to each other! Cool!) It costs them each $27 a week, but they are glad to have the coverage. Several of them are getting stuff checked out that should have been taken care of years ago.

As to helping with hiring, we found that several of the inquiries we received last time we advertised, were looking for a job with health benefits. I think it makes it look a lot more like a Real Job when there are benefits included...

[Ron Eggers]

I get to see this issue from two sides.

My wife gets good group insurance through her employer, but we pay 100% of it. It's a "good deal" because she has conditions that would make it nearly impossible for her to get health insurance independently. With dental, we pay about $1500/month for the four of us.

I'm also a director for a self-insured corporation that has seen their health-care costs rise an average of 21% annually for quite a few years. Next year, they will pay out about $500,000 before their stop-loss policy kicks in, and this is not a huge company (under 300 employees.)

Whether insurance is a strong incentive in recruiting will depend on the individual and his/her circumstances.

[Tim Hayes.]

It would be helpful to me if those contributing posts to this thread would supply some details of the health insurance they provide. Insurance company, a brief idea of the benefits and the premiums would be great. My coverage for the average employee is about $440/month and I can't afford to pay but about half of that amount for employees. Ours is Carefirst Blue Cross / Blue Shield. It is a PPO with $10 copay $1,000 deductible and no lifetime cap on coverage. It includes $1,500 dental coverage. Thanks for any details you may be willing to share.
Tim Hayes
The Framing Guild, Inc.

[ 12-04-2003, 08:59 AM: Message edited by: Tim Hayes ]

[wpfay]

Tim,
That sounds like excellent coverage, better than what we get through employment with BCBS/FL, and for about the same cost per person.
The problem inherent in doing comparisons with the rest of us is that the individual states control the rules for the insurance companies. What is available to us might not be available to you, or it might have a completely different price structure.

The Small Group policies in Florida are very expensive, because 1) no one can be denied coverage if they qualify as self employed (my wife has authorized insurance to clients that have needed open heart sugery withing weeks after getting the insurance, they aren't even allowed to ask about existing conditions) & 2) the average age of the population is the highest in the nation (older population=more health insurance needs).

[Warren Tucker]

I'm always amazed when I hear something like "the employees pay half their insurance costs" or "the employer pays half the Social Security contribution". Except in large industrial setting that's simply naive. The employee pays 100% of both because otherwise the money would be available for salary.

We have 8 employees and health insurance is a condition for working for us. I'm not having anybody working for me who isn't insured. Wehave Medcost ($30 co pay and drug benefit) through some insurance association underwritten by NY Life, I think. Our youngest employee is about $250 and the oldest 400 a month. If an employee gets health insurance through a husband's group (we only have women working for us) we drop her from the policy and add her premium to her salary.

One thing about the employer paying the premium, it comes from pretaxed compensation and is a pretty good deal for the employee. Warren

[Barb Pelton]

Originally posted by EllenAtHowards:

As to helping with hiring, we found that several of the inquiries we received last time we advertised, were looking for a job with health benefits. I think it makes it look a lot more like a Real Job when there are benefits included... Yes, I agree. I've lost good employees in the past to jobs with benefits--not necessarily higher pay. I'm at a point where I WILL get better employees (I'm speaking as a whole; I have some good ones right now), OR I will get to the point where I work alone. Not-so-good employees can be lethal.

I want to fine tune the health insurance coverage to be the best I can afford to offer.
I can see it is going to require more research on my part.

Thanks for all input, and would appreciate any more that anyone can offer.

[Rebecca]

Holey Smokes!

Every time I get home sick and think I should have stayed in the US, I hear about the health care situation and think - welllll, maybe in my next lifetime. Here in B.C there is no dental coverage (that stinks), but B.C. Med., which covers most medical stuff, costs about $108.00/month for family of three.

Prescriptions have a deductable according to family income, and then once that is reached, the province covers something like 70%.

There are down sides to universal coverage for sure, and I have ranted about them to some of you!, but I guess most plans have their problems. The best solution is private $$$$ :( .

Is there any hope of a reasonable/affordable/practical national healthcare system in the US in the forseeable future?

Rebecca

[jframe]

We are all over age 50. Aetna doubled the cost this year to over $800 per mo. for each of us, or at least they tried to. My employer searched around and found the same, if not better policy for about $300 less for each.

If they would give us physicals I think they could be assured the primium is way too high. This should be included in the "crime" topic. Insurance agents have not replaced lawyers as the #1 most dispised group.

When they come in to have something framed, what would they say if we doubled their framing charges?

[JRB]

I pay 100%. It is fairly easy for me since I only have one employee.

Having a good health policy ( we have Kaiser ) just makes good business sense. Kaiser leans toward preventative medicine, they don't want major claims I guess. That works great for me, it keeps Mary healthy and hard working.

I would rather make sure she has a good health policy as opposed to having her call in sick all the time. The extra money I spend is more than made up for in productivity. I mean what does it cost for health insurance for the average employee. It's not much, something like $125.00 a month. How much do you lose when your productions is cut in half?

John

[JRB]

Rebeca asked if we think there might be a chance of universal health care in the U.S.

I don't think it is something that we will see in our lifetimes, or our children's or grandchildren. It just ain't going to happen.

Our system of government is designed for special interest groups only. The ones with the strongest lobby's and the most money are going to be the winners.

Doctors and hospitals have way to much to lose if we ever federalized health care. Kind of like someone actually finding a real cure for cancer. It would destroy one of the U.S.s biggest industries, cancer research. It's just one of the many things they keep teasing us with, but any logical person would not really expect it to happen, just to darn much money involved.

Our politicians will actually make universal health care part of their campaigns. Once they get in office, all that changes. The only thing they care about is the donations to their war chests. They need the money to convince their constituents what a great job they are doing for them.

John

[Jana]

What John said ;) and my thoughts...

Our healthcare system is very inequitable as it stands now. Something needs to be done to change the status quo of a system that just doesn't work.

I know too many people who do not have health insurance. It makes them feel like second class citizens. It can be very humiliating. I don't see the democracy in a stunted health care system like we have.

I laud all of you who are able to provide health insurance for your employees.