Brian Klepper of Atlantic Beach, CEO of the National Business Coalition on Health, says his group sees little interest among major employers to offload responsibility for employees' coverage.
So far, despite predictions that employers would embrace private exchanges, they haven't, Klepper writes. His organization's own survey of middle managers found only 5 percent have moved to private exchanges and just 8 percent think it's a possibility in the next three years.
Private exchange enthusiasts say they let employers get out of the business of choosing insurance plans and trying to manage costs. They just give workers a voucher and let them shop, shifting any burden for unnecessary frills on the worker. But opponents say private exchanges add cost to the system instead of removing it, because signing up workers one by one is at least 15 percent more expensive than enrolling people as a group.
Klepper republished his column, published Oct. 17 on the Health Affairs blog, on his own blog.
