Services such as drug therapies, intensive care, angioplasty, and MRI are delivered more routinely. Costs become less important because the patient is insulated from a majority of the expenses. Also, we re getting older and living longer, approximately every eight seconds for the next 10 years, a baby boomer turns 50. As age increases, typically so does health costs. A number of states have passed health care reform bills to help manage costs.
Employer responses to increase health costs include shifting costs and changing delivery.
Shifting the costs have included benefit cutback and reducing coverage levels and employees paying for dependents. Reducing the cost has included manage care, physician networks, and changing the participants lifestyles, such as smoking cessation. Employers have introduced flexible benefits which allows an employee to pick which coverage they would like. The legislature is not increasing appropriations at a rate that will cover increases in salary and benefits and is scaling back state government. The legislature believes government employee s benefit programs are too expansive and health care bills are annual introduced.