Health care costs keep going up and up, and every politician, business owner, and worker is looking for ways to save money.
The National Association of Health Underwriters and ChapterHouse LLC recently released a study called "Buying Trends." It shows that almost 90 percent of insurance agents and brokers think that the health insurance market will look very different in the next five to ten years. They think that people will move away from traditional plans and toward plans that are based on what people want.
Now that open enrollment time is here, people can look at these consumer-driven plans and decide if they might be a good fit for them. This study has accurately predicted other changes in health care in the past, so leaders in the field give a lot of weight to these results.
Consumer-driven health plans are high-deductible plans that come with a savings account. These plans include health reimbursement accounts and health savings accounts. The money can be used to pay for health care costs for employees.
Consumer-driven health plans have lower premiums than traditional health insurance plans and allow people to choose what kind of health care services they want. This makes people more involved in the decision-making process.
Nearly 30% of employers plan to offer these consumer-driven health plans, and employees will need to decide if they are ready to switch to this new way of thinking about health care.
The study also showed that people who want health care to be run by the government don't have much hope. Only 3% of those who answered thought that a single-payer system was likely, and only 7% thought that the U.S. government would make rules in the future.
Even though the future of health care is still unknown, the study predicts that private market initiatives will be used to help solve this crisis in the United States.
