The Wall Street Journal reports on a Kaiser study showing slow adoption and low satisfaction for consumer-directed health care plans. Growth between 2005 and 2006 was a mere 300,000 -- from 2.4 million to 2.7 million -- and much of that comes on the individual market, where there are few affordable options, or because employers force the change. "Where employees do have a choice," the Journal reports, "only 19% choose the newfangled plans." In the Federal Employee Healht benefits Program, where the plans have been available for years and word-of-mouth could be expected to popularize a cheap, useful new alternative, only 50,000 of the 8 million members have signed up for the free-market wonders. The consumers are directing their health care plans, and they're directing them away from health savings accounts.
Satisfaction is low, too. The employee-benefits firm Towers-Perrin recently did a survey of the plans, and while the exact numbers aren't included in the article, David Guilmette, managing director of Towers Perrin's health-care consulting practice, summed them up: "If I were a product manager in any other industry and saw scores this low in customer satisfaction and understanding, I'd be thinking of pulling that product from the shelves or retooling it."
The really scary finding is that only 29 percent of those with the plans actually report saving money for health expenses. The whole point of health savings accounts is that you can sock away money tax-free for health expenses. With that cash lying in wait, you enjoy the low premiums and have a ready storehouse if disaster strikes. But for the vast majority of families, that cash isn't in wait, and the reduced coverage and increased deductibles will hit with full force.
So employees aren't signing up, they don't like the plans when they do sign up, and they don't use them correctly when they're enrolled. Some policy innovation. Some fix.
