This trend could transform both the health industry and employers' health responsibilities to employees.
All businesses in America, especially small ones, are concerned about health care costs and the related problem of attracting and keeping the best, front-line, service employees. Because of critical and still climbing health insurance costs, there is a justifiable and growing buzz about “health savings accounts” (HSAs) as a tool for reducing health insurance costs. But HSAs are more than a short-term, cost-control tool, they may be the catalyst that will power a trend that already has traction called “consumer-driven health care” (CDHC). This trend could, in turn, transform - not reform - both the health industry and the health responsibilities of employers to their employees. All businesses will do better in the people talent war if they can correctly read and catch this wave.
In the '80s and '90s, “market-driven health care” created enormous consolidation of both buying power for health services through HMOs and PPOs and of integrated health provider services. Delivering one-stop-shop, integrated services efficiently “utilized” was the name of the game. Until the mid-1990s, HMOs delivered less inflation in costs than all other alternatives. Since then, however, HMOs have raised prices as fast as alternatives, and all provider solutions have averaged double-digit growth rates for the past six years.