Phóng sự xã hội: survey

Chủ Nhật, 10 tháng 3, 2013

Survey finds most large employers will keep health insurance benefits after Affordable Care Act

Most large employers don't expect to send their full-time employees to government health exchanges for insurance during the next five years, but some retirees and part-time workers will end up there, a new survey has found.

The outlook for corporate insurance in the long term is less certain.

Only about 26 percent of large employers surveyed were very confident their company will offer healthcare benefits in 10 years. That is a slight increase from last year's 23 percent, but a sharp drop from 73 percent five years ago.

About one-half of the people in the United States who have health insurance receive it from their employers. Most of the rest are enrolled in individual plans or government Medicare and Medicaid programs.

More people are expected to buy health insurance at government-run electronic marketplaces, which will start selling plans for 2014 later this year as part of the 2010 U.S. Affordable Care Act.

Consultancy Towers Watson and the National Business Group on Health conducted the annual survey of more than 500 of the nation's largest employers, who self insure, or pay for employee healthcare treatments. The companies were surveyed between November and January, a time when 2013 health plans went into effect and as companies plan for 2014.

During the next five years, 60 percent of large employers said it was not at all likely they would discontinue health care plans for full-time employees and send them to the government exchanges with a financial subsidy for insurance.

Also, 82 percent said they think it was highly unlikely they would direct full-time employees to exchanges without a subsidy.

The Affordable Care Act has implemented a wide range of new rules. More services must be included in plans. Also, companies will need to offer health care insurance to all employees who work more than 30 hours per week or be forced to pay a tax. Because the tax is less than the cost of health care for them, some companies may pay the tax instead.

"There will definitely be employers who will be looking to move certain segments of their workforce towards the public exchanges and those segments could be early retirees and they could be part-timers working under 30 hours," said Randall Abbott, senior consultant at Towers Watson.

Among companies where 20 percent or more of their workforce are part time, 29 percent said it was highly likely that in the next five years they would end health care benefits for employees working less than 30 hours per week. Sixty-seven percent said it was unlikely.

Costs keep rising
The survey found the average premium cost for employers and employees combined rose about 6 percent in 2013 from 2012. Employees paid, on average, $2,888 in annual premiums, up about 8.7 percent from 2012.

Total spending on healthcare in the United States was about $2.7 trillion, and is rising at a rate of about 6 percent a year, although last year it was only about 4 percent.

Companies trying to cut health care spending have turned to wellness initiatives, such as charging smokers surcharges. Also, health plans are discouraging health care overspending by employees by putting more of the costs on them.

For instance, instead of paying a monthly premium and a co-pay for doctor visits, many employees may pay a lower monthly premium and then pay for the doctor visit out of a special tax-free savings account until they reach a higher-than-usual deductible.

These consumer-directed health plans in which employees have a tax-free health spending account made up 30 percent of most large employers' health plan enrollment in 2013, up from 25 percent in 2012, the survey found.

About 53 percent of employers offer the plans now and 67 percent plan to do so in 2014. It will be the only option at 23 percent of employers in 2014.

In addition to cutting spending, employers cite the Affordable Care Act's 2018 excise tax as the motivation for the plans, according to Abbott of Towers Watson. The tax, often called the Cadillac tax, is expected to apply to companies that offer high-priced plans as a way to discourage overspending on health care.

View the original article here

Thứ Hai, 25 tháng 2, 2013

Male nurses make more than female counterparts, survey finds

Hospital patients are more likely than ever to see a male nurse at their bedside — and odds are he earns more than the female nurse down the hall.

Men made up close to 10 percent of all registered nurses in 2011, according to a new Census report released today. That may not sound like much, but it’s up from less than 3 percent in 1970 and less than 8 percent in 2000.

It’s no mystery what is drawing men into nursing. Male-dominated professions such as construction and manufacturing hemorrhaged jobs during the recession and have been slow to rebound during the recovery. The health-care sector, meanwhile, actually added jobs during the recession and has continued to grow since. All told, health-care employment is up by nearly 1.4 million since the recession began, while employment in the construction and manufacturing sectors is down by nearly 3.6 million. Education and health workers have an unemployment rate of 5.4 percent, versus 7.9 percent for factory workers and 16.1 percent for construction workers.

Women still dominate nursing in terms of employment — but not in terms of earnings. The average female nurse earned $51,100 in 2011, 16 percent less than the $60,700 earned by the average man in the same job.

The difference in earnings is partly due to the fact that men were more likely than women to work full-time. When looking only at full-time, year-round workers, the gap narrows, but it doesn’t disappear; female nurses working full-time, year-round earned 9 percent less than their male counterparts.

Part of the reason, the Census study suggests, is a previously documented phenomenon known as the “glass escalator” in which men earn higher wages and faster promotions in female-dominated professions. In nursing, men are more concentrated in the highest-earning segments of the field. They make up 41 percent of nurse anesthetists, who earn nearly $148,000 on average, but only 8 percent of licensed practical nurses, who make just $35,000.

Even within a given field, however, men tend to earn more; among full-time, year-round registered nurses, women earned 7 percent less than men in 2011. The study’s authors note, however, that the wage gap is smaller in nursing than in the economy as a whole, where women earn on average 77 cents to the dollar, according to the Census report.

View the original article here