ForConstructionPros.com

You may be asking, "How can you possibly use the words ‘health insurance' and ‘lower costs' in the same sentence, the same paragraph, or even the same page?" For as long as I can remember, it seems all you ever hear is: "Oops, our health insurance premium is going up another 25% this year." Sound familiar?

Up to this point, your options to change this trend have been very limited. You could:

• Keep re-bidding your health insurance every few years
• Pass as much of the increase to employees as possible
• Reduce coverage
• Increase deductibles
• "Lease" your employees
• Explore industry group plans

But none of the options seem to work. Pretty soon you just give up and accept the fact that there is nothing you can do to control health insurance, except maybe offer no coverage at all. That is, until now.

How high-deductible plans work
You now have an additional option to explore that may provide some relief. It's the new high-deductible (consumer-driven) plans associated with Health Savings Account (HSA) and Health Reimbursement Arrangement (HRA) programs.
I usually stay away from discussing health insurance. But after working with it over the last six months, as well as sitting in on various presentations, I believe this type of plan will make insured personnel more cost conscious and have them taking a more active role in wellness programs.

In simple terms, these plans change the way medical claims get paid by forcing employees covered to pay 100% of claims after a certain point, rather than just co-pays. Now as soon as that switch is made, what do you think happens?