While attending RosettaFest last month in Chicago, one thing was made abundantly clear: We have the cure for the disease that’s rampant in the American healthcare system. We just need to take the medicine.
The problem is obvious to anyone with a pulse and a high premium to pay. Close to $1 trillion is wasted in the nation’s medical ecosystem – resulting in skyrocketing premiums that have made healthcare a top business expense, second only to payroll for most midsize companies.
Why is healthcare so expensive? The reasons are many. The real question is how can we fix it?
This was the key topic at RosettaFest, “a festival for the healthcare heroes who are restoring the American Dream.” It’s the premier event of Health Rosetta, a healthcare community of advisors, employers, and community leaders striving for the adoption of simple, practical, non-partisan fixes to our healthcare system.
In his State of Health Rosetta address, Dave Chase, the founder of Health Rosetta, goes a long way in laying out the problem and explaining the cure.
Self-funding is a big part of the prescription. Most employers with over 1,000 employees self-insure because they gain transparency, flexibility, and control, plus can save a lot of money on benefits. And thanks to a self-insured Group Medical Captive, companies with only 25 employees can now self-fund their healthcare benefits with the same confidence as the Fortune 500s.
How Healthcare Affects Us at Home
Roughly 41% of adults are indebted to the healthcare system. Preventable medical deaths have become the third leading cause of death in America. And, as Dave points out, the number one driver of health outcomes in America is income.
American families and the employers who struggle to afford good benefits for their employees are affected. Many of our basic needs have fallen to the wayside because the cost of healthcare continues to spiral out of control. Dave called our healthcare system “the greatest and immediate existential threat to our country.”
One surprising revelation Dave had to share: It’s not so much that healthcare itself is so expensive. It’s the system that’s expensive. And until we address that system with practical and affordable solutions like self-funding in a captive, American families will continue to suffer.
We stand at a crossroads. The time for affordable healthcare has come – if we’re willing to take a different path forward. We have a huge opportunity ahead of us. We can build sustainable healthcare models to improve lives, communities, and business outcomes by rejecting the status quo and choosing alternative approaches such as self-funding instead.
Why Hasn’t Self-Funding Gone Viral?
With all the problems in the health insurance system, what is stopping us from fixing it? And with all the known benefits of self-funding in a group captive, why hasn’t it spread like wildfire? In his “Lay of the Land” Podcast, Jeffrey Stern asks this very question to Roundstone’s Founder and President Mike Schroeder. It’s a head-scratcher, but the biggest reason comes down to misaligned incentives in the healthcare ecosystem.
“It’s in the best interest of the employer and employee to manage quality, affordable health care for their company,” Mike said in the podcast. “It’s not always in the best interest of the intermediary to do so. It’s certainly not in the best interest of the traditional insurance company to do so. The providers, they’re kind of disconnected from it as well. And so not everybody’s rowing in the same direction.”
But it’s getting there. Employers and advisors are realizing things have to change, but time is running out. In the next year, health insurance costs are expected to spike another 6.5%, according to the Wall St. Journal. Employers can’t sustain much more. More advisors realize they need to be part of a solution. They need to become heroes to companies that can’t continue to keep up with outrageous healthcare inflation.
See What Success Looks Like: Fireside Chat with Dave Chase and Mike Schroeder
Want to learn more about how to fix healthcare and take back the American dream?
Join our fireside chat with Dave and Mike where we sit down, diagnose America’s healthcare crisis, and prescribe a workable cure.
I enjoyed moderating the discussion. It proved to be a fiery conversation between two industry leaders working to change the nation’s healthcare system and save the American dream.
You’ll learn actionable steps you can take to build better benefits. You’ll hear success stories from organizations that have solved healthcare’s toughest challenges – and how you can too.
The session is now available on demand.
