Survey: Large firms to offer health care

Large companies plan to keep offering health care coverage to employees, but cut costs by investing in initiatives to improve employee health, according to a survey of 448 companies released Thursday.

While some companies have been trimming health benefits and raising copays, none of the large-company human resources executives surveyed said their organization would be less involved in health care benefits over the next three to five years than they are today, according to the survey by human resources consultant Hewitt Associates LLC.

It's "possible that some large employers will drop health care benefits, but based on our respondents, we do not think this will be widespread unless there are fundamental changes in the current health care environment," Hewitt's report said.

However, the survey involved few finance executives, a group more likely to consider exiting health care for employees than human resources executives, Hewitt said.

"I've been in a dozen client meetings where the employer has said, 'I'd gladly be the second (to drop health care), but I'm not going to be the first,'" said James M. Winkler, practice leader of Hewitt's health management consulting practice.

Instead, 63 percent of the companies in the survey said they plan to take aggressive, multiyear steps to help employees improve their health by increasing education and rolling out disease-management programs.

Companies' efforts at improving employee health range from simple things, such as flipping the food in company vending machines so the nutritional information faces out, to an increasing number of in-house clinics and pharmacists to help employees with primary care, Winkler said.

Almost 70 percent of the companies surveyed, which have an average of 18,758 employees, plan to offer tools, including health risk questionnaires and nurse hot lines, so employees can better manage their health, according to the survey.