Our Plan of Action due to National Healthcare Trends
A financially strong health plan is critically important for you and your family, both now and for years to come. To ensure financial strength means making hard decisions. Inside our March issue of the Builder, you will find important changes to this Plan.
Healthcare spending in the U.S. has been steadily increasing for decades. In 2020, healthcare costs rose nationally to almost 20% of the gross domestic product (GDP). The GDP is the total amount of money spent for all goods and services in the U. S. In simple terms, this means that $0.20 for every $1.00 spent went toward healthcare spending in 2020. Sadly, there are no signs this upward trend is slowing down. It continues to impact health plans across the nation. It’s impacting this plan.
A number of factors are negatively impacting our Plan today. First, in an effort to meet industry needs, the Plan did not raise employer contribution rates from 2014-2017. Unfortunately, the fixed rate contributions could not keep pace with rising healthcare costs. In addition, the costs of the pandemic have been significant and continue today:
- In 2021, almost 2,000,000 man hours were lost due to covid, resulting in lost revenue of almost $15,000,000.
- Medical costs of treating covid have taken a unprecedented toll.
- Since the healthcare system halted elective services, serious health conditions went undetected and are now even more costly to treat.
For the Plan to continue providing quality health benefits for its nearly 50,000 covered lives, the Trustees of the St. Louis-Kansas City Carpenters Regional Health Plan approved significant changes to the health plan. These plan modifications will ensure the financial strength of the Plan and are detailed in the first four pages of our March Builder newsletter.
