HR survey: O-Care will raise health costs

Three out of five healthcare benefit decision makers thinks ObamaCare will raise the cost of health care at their company, according to a new survey.

In a poll of 266 industry decision makers, such as chief financial officers, human resources executives, and benefit managers, 60 percent say the Affordable Care Act will up healthcare costs, according to PlanSource, a healthcare software provider.

{mosads}Republicans continue to argue ObamaCare will lead to higher healthcare costs, while Democrats insist premiums will come down as more people sign up for health insurance plans in the coming years.

While the decision makers showed strong interest in moving employees to the private exchanges, PlanSource said only 2 percent of those surveyed have so far signed up their employees.

Besides cost, 65 percent of the respondents say the main reason they haven’t made the shift is because of the difficulty in educating their employees about new benefits. One third also said they hadn’t made the change because they don’t have the resources to handle employee issues and manage benefit providers.

“Our research highlights what a huge opportunity there is for private exchanges in the healthcare industry,” said Scott Carver, president of PlanSource. “As our survey shows, the main challenge for the majority of decision makers in the benefits space is educating their employees on benefit choices.”

Four out of five respondents said the top priority of private exchanges should be to offer competitive healthcare choices. Two thirds also said it was important the process of choosing a plan was made easier and faster, and a similar ratio said it was important the private exchanges help make that happen.