Helen Darling Health Quotations

Leading employers in the U.S. remain committed to helping their employees with health benefits coverage and programs to improve their health and the health of their families. These employers know that one of the most important ways to control costs is to help employees and their families get and stay healthy.

Our members are very excited about this program. Rising health costs are a major challenge for employers and their employees, and this program offers the opportunity to improve quality and consumer decision-making while possibly lowering costs.

Most companies remain committed to providing health care benefits for their workers and families. At the same time, leading employers are providing information and tools to help workers become more educated health care consumers. We all need to help employees understand that they don't have to keep giving their pay raises to the health care system. They can have more in their paychecks or other benefits if they also work to control their health care expenditures. Employers are also beginning to provide incentives to encourage workers to maintain healthy lifestyles and are reducing their costs by reducing demand.

Employers need to measure the cost of any given health plan two different ways: premiums and productivity. Premiums are simple but until the Quality Dividend Calculator, nobody gave you a number showing you how Plan X was going to affect employee productivity. But employers need to know that number in order to determine which plan really represents the best value. The 'productivity cost' of a bad health plan can be very, very high.

Employers should not focus on employee accountability alone. When used in combination with promoting quality care, health management, use of data and appropriate use of care, companies are able to achieve significantly lower cost trends.

There's no one in the business world who doesn't share the position that the U.S. health care system has a crisis, ... The issue here isn't General Motors. The issue is the unaffordability of health care.

It's going to radically change medicine. The biggest problem in our country is that we don't have 21st century health IT.

In addition to employers having to pay out more in health care costs, public opinion is now solidly on the side of eliminating smoking and workers are realizing increasingly that they are having to pay for others' lifestyle choices.

It has the potential to help lower both short-term and long-term health costs.

The underlying problem is the problem of affordability of health care in the United States,

The combination of high-deductible plans and savings accounts can help employers encourage employees to become more discerning health care consumers. Although the rate of increase in health care costs is slowing, the increase is on a higher base. Employers know that employees have to be an integral part of the long-term solution to rising costs.