Usage of the exchanges ticks up again, but strong growth is not expected until at least 2016.
Exchange participants can either 'buy up' or 'buy down' compared with their previous coverage, but most do the latter rather than opt for better insurance.
It could be the validation that this emerging mode of delivering employee health benefits needs to really take off.
Or is Buck Consultants’ “exchange” not really an exchange at all but rather a collection of health-benefits services wrapped in that label? Does it matter?
The rhetoric is heated and getting hotter all the time in the emerging field of private health-benefits insurance exchanges. Where does the real truth lie?
Almost four in five employees at the three customers of Aon Hewitt’s new private exchange chose a different kind of plan than they had used previously. More opted for a less-costly plan than one with better benefits.
CFOs love predictable costs almost as much as lower costs. That’s a key selling point for private exchanges, which enable a defined-contribution approach to funding employee health benefits.
To what extent Corporate America will embrace this emerging method of delivering employee health care is not yet clear — but a vast transformation appears quite possible.
