On May 5, 2009, Ken Sperling, Hewitt's Global Health Management Consulting Leader, provided a statement to the United States Senate Finance Committee's roundtable discussion on expanding coverage in self-insured and fully insured markets. Our statement provided our point of view and data to support the importance of preserving, strengthening, and stabilizing the employer-based health care system as part of any health care reform effort.
Sperling stated that new health care reform legislation must not disrupt existing coverage or inadvertently add incremental costs that are becoming increasingly difficult for both employers and employees to shoulder. Our testimony addressed seven important questions about the employer-based health care system:
- Why do employers voluntarily provide coverage?
- What do employers (and employees) pay for health coverage?
- What are the cost drivers in the employer-sponsored system?
- What benefit designs do large employers adopt?
- How does the actuarial value of large-employer benefits compare to the Federal Employee Health Benefits Program (FEHBP)?
- What efforts are large employers taking to manage costs and improve health?
- What are the implications for large employers of a "pay or play" requirement or an employer mandate to provide coverage?
The data and observations used to answer these questions were mainly derived from several of our proprietary databases, including:
- The Hewitt Health Value Initiative (HHVI), containing detailed census, cost, and plan design data for 325 large U.S. employers representing 13.1 million participants and $50.5 billion in 2009 health care spending.
- SpecBook, Hewitt's database of plan design prevalence information on 706 large U.S. companies offering benefits to their employees.
- Enrollment data from 200 employers that use Hewitt for benefits administration services, representing more than 6.5 million eligible participants.
The PDF file below contains Sperling's full statement.
