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Published on: 8/21/2002
Last Visited: 4/24/2003
"It's a dilemma," admits Robert Delaney Jr. "It's brutal."Delaney is the chief operating officer of Members Insurance Agency LLC, which is jointly owned by the Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Rhode Island Credit Union Leagues and located in Southborough, Mass.
The difficulty, in part, says Delaney, is because credit unions have traditionally been "very much above the average in the business community in terms of being very gracious in paying the entire cost of the premium and not cost sharing with employees."But, he adds, "their ability to do that forever and ever is seriously in question.It's incumbent on credit unions to try to look around and see what they can do."
Credit unions are considering a variety of alternatives, he says, "including looking at the overall pie and the way it's divided up and at least contemplating passing a greater share of the premium burden onto the employee."
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There has been, says Delaney, a move toward what some people are calling consumer-driven healthcare and others are calling defined-contribution health plans.
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And it's been a question, according to Delaney, that most if not all have been quite conservative in answering.
"All of the credit unions we've spoken to have been unwilling, and I think justifiably so, to pass the entire risk or burden to employees," says Delaney.Instead, they work with a third-party administrator, he says, "to self-fund, if you will, or take on some of the risk for the small claims that would hit against the deductible."
An associated benefit of this strategy, he says, is better access for employees to information from the insurance carriers than with a traditional plan."One of the goals of credit unions that have taken this approach," says Delaney, "is they're trying to begin an educational process with employees so employees can start to understand that it doesn't cost $10 to go the doctor's office-that's the co-pay, but not the true cost."
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"There's no silver bullet," says Delaney.
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