[Grovenet] Health Insurance -- remember when

[Martha Khoury]

... health benefits were fully paid? Got the following from a company.
For years the government has been pushing the cost of health care onto
employers. Now the employers are pushing it onto the employees. Them's
us folks. It ain't just WalMart anymore. 
--Martha K.



Allocation of Premium:
    One of our compensation goals has always been to maintain health
benefits that are generally comparable to those offered by other
employers in our market (in general, west coast high-tech).  As you
know, for many years the cost of health care has grown much faster than
the rate of inflation, and there appears to be no end in sight.
Therefore, our compensation goals become more difficult each year. Like
us, most employers have adopted a percentage-based approach to premium
allocation because it engages the employee and ensures that both the
employer and the employee have a stake in the cost of health care.  As
long as the the allocation of premium is comparable, this maintains as
fair and equitable a comparison between employers as is possible under
the circumstances.

For more than 20 years, [Name of company] has paid a full 80% of the
premium for both the employee and eligible dependents. For some time we
have suspected that our percentage allocation is more liberal than most
employer-sponsored health plans.  Recently, we have begun to see data
that supports this.  Projected into future years, this is ultimately
untenable. At some point we will not be able to support this difference.
Either we will be unable to compete in other areas of compensation, or
we will need to bring our allocation of premium into line with the norm.
Again, we are not making any changes this year, but we felt it is
important to bring this to your attention at this time.  We will
continue to monitor the data in this area.