Why Employers Sponsor Health Plans

On September 9, 2009, in Blog, by George Pantos

There is a com­pelling busi­ness imper­a­tive for employ­ers to pro­vide health ben­e­fits to employ­ees and their fam­i­lies. Sur­veys doc­u­ment that employ­ees rate employment-based health ben­e­fits as their most impor­tant ben­e­fit, and find sig­nif­i­cant value for employ­ers in terms of employee reten­tion, moti­va­tion and sat­is­fac­tion. Com­pa­nies with huge finan­cial invest­ments in human capital–their workforce–understand the value […]

Response to Washington Post

On September 2, 2009, in Blog, by George Pantos

George Pan­tos: Charles Krauthammer’s arti­cle on The Great ‘Pre­ven­tion’ Myth Does Not Tell the Whole Story MyHealthGuide Source: Charles Krautham­mer, Wash­ing­ton Post – 8/14/09 Wash­ing­ton Post George Pan­tos, Esq., For­mer Wash­ing­ton Gen­eral Coun­sel to Self-Insurance Insti­tute of Amer­ica (SIIA), 8/16/09 The Great ‘Pre­ven­tion’ Myth Arti­cle Charles Krautham­mer wrote the arti­cle, The Great ‘Pre­ven­tion’ Myth, that was published […]

Health Reform Bills Harmful to Self-Insurance

On August 17, 2009, in Blog, by George Pantos

Pend­ing health reform bills, unless mod­i­fied, would have a neg­a­tive impact on self-insurance that works well for mil­lions of Amer­i­cans. A gov­ern­ment– run and financed Health Insur­ance Exchange would  allow ALL employ­ers, includ­ing self-insured employ­ers, even­tu­ally to access the Exchange.  Despite Pres­i­dent Obama’s  promise that  peo­ple would be able to keep their cur­rent cov­er­age under […]

Response to Washington Post RE Heath Care

On August 12, 2009, in Blog, by George Pantos

I agree whole­heart­edly with Mr. Steven Pearlstein’s com­ments in the Wash­ing­ton Post  today crit­i­cal of  Mr. Charles Krauthammer’s recent obser­va­tions on employer based health. I believe the pos­i­tive con­tri­bu­tions of the employ­ment based sys­tem in the health sec­tor largely have been over­looked and that employ­ers who cover mil­lions of Amer­i­cans and pay the lion’s share […]

ERISA and Health Reform

On August 1, 2009, in Blog, by George Pantos

Polls report that 5 out of 6 non-elderly Amer­i­cans under age 65 have pri­vate employer health plan cov­er­age and 3 out of 4 are gen­er­ally sat­is­fied with their health plans. Congress–often referred to as the world’s great­est delib­er­a­tive body– took  nearly 10 years to pass  The Employee Retire­ment Income Secu­rity Act (ERISA), the fed­eral law […]

Self Insurance and Health Reform

On July 29, 2009, in Blog, by George Pantos

Under ERISA, more than 160 mil­lion peo­ple receive job-related health ben­e­fits, includ­ing over 75 mil­lion peo­ple cov­ered by self-insurance. By any mea­sure, this is strong evi­dence that ERISA and self-insurance are suc­cess sto­ries in the U.S. health care sys­tem. Nev­er­the­less, self-insurance and the employer based sys­tem could be a casu­alty of health reform leg­is­la­tion. Proponents […]