Since Americans are spending vast amounts of their personal income on healthcare nowadays, it seems like a good time to start talking about the steps we are taking here at Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Louisiana to improve it.
Health insurance companies like Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Louisiana have a long history of trying to slow down the rapidly rising cost of healthcare. Over the years, a variety of strategies have emerged. Frankly, we’ve tried lots of stuff. When a company comes to us because their employee healthcare costs are going up too quickly, we try things like cutting out high-cost medical providers, steering people to less-expensive (but equally effective) drugs, raising out-of-pocket costs to discourage non-essential healthcare, and changing the mix between the employer contribution and the employee contribution.
By Michael Bertaut, Healthcare Economist
Anyone who has put together a home budget can tell you that the simplest (in theory) way to save money is to spend less. That applies to healthcare as well. At Blue Cross, we spend 84% of your premiums on actual healthcare, so we can make the biggest impact in controlling premium costs by actually keeping healthcare spending lower.
