High Deductible/Consumer Directed Health Plans
Today's print edition of the Wall Street Journal discusses the trend toward the new "consumer-directed health plans." As the open-enrollment season will be soon upon us, 26% of U.S. companies with 500 or more employees say they are likely to offer these high deductible plans (according to Mercer).
From an employee perspective these plans can drastically reduce premiums. Conversely, however, they will tend to require consumers to lay out potentially considerably more money every time they seek care. The potential impact of this is that the healthy who do not seek care will likely pay much less than the sick who must satisfy high deductibles before insurance kicks in. The incentive here is that it will encourage consumers to shop for health care bargains. Unfortunately, however, I don't suspect that the health care community has yet to embrace this idea. So, finding this information so that one can make an educated and informed decision about costs and quality will like require a change in some of the philosophies of our health care providers.