Just 1% of organizations will eliminate healthcare coverage, survey finds

Despite employers' uncertainty of healthcare reform and its related costs, only 1 percent of organizations expect to eliminate healthcare coverage in 2015, and large organizations anticipate more changes to their health plans than small organizations, according to the Society for Human Resource Management 2014 Health Benefits Survey.

The SHRM conducted the survey among 3,329 human resources professionals from a randomly selected sample of SHRM membership between February and April.

According to the survey, the most popular change HR professionals plan to make to their organization's healthcare offerings in 2015 is the addition of wellness rewards or penalties, indicated by 26.3 percent of respondents. About 8 percent said they will require spouses of employees to get coverage through their own employer, and 6.7 percent said they will institute a spousal surcharge.

Company size influences the type and extent of changes to health plans, according to the survey. Organizations with at least 750 full-time employees are more likely than organizations with fewer than 750 FTEs to make the following changes:

  • Institute spousal surcharge
  • Eliminate coverage for part-time workers
  • Adopt a value-based insurance design
  • Adopt reference pricing
  • Create tiered networks
  • Add wellness rewards or penalties

Changes to health plans are relatively similar across the west, Midwest, south and northeastern regions, but employers in the northeast are significantly more likely to provide an employee subsidy for coverage on the private exchange than in other regions.

According to the survey, manufacturing organizations are more likely than consulting organizations to add wellness rewards or penalties.

The vast majority of respondents — 85 percent — do not expect their organization to hit the excise tax in 2018. In organizations with 750 or more FTEs, 76.1 percent do not expect to hit the excise tax in 2018, compared to 86.8 percent in organizations with fewer than 750 FTEs. Government jobs indicated the highest likelihood of hitting the excise tax compared to privately owned for-profit or nonprofit organizations, with 27.5 percent of respondents in the government sector reporting they expect to.

Most HR professionals (74.3 percent) said they expect the preferred provider organization plan to hit the excise tax, followed by health maintenance organization plans (18.5 percent) and point of service plans (17.3 percent).

Most HR professionals don't know what actions they will take to avoid the excise tax (29.4 percent), while 16.5 percent said they will change plans and 10.6 percent said they will reduce coverage.

According to the report, other research has shown that healthcare benefits are an extremely valuable recruiting tactic, and HR professionals often present these benefits when speaking to a potential new employee or retaining current workers.

View the full survey here.

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