Employers Predict Liability Expansion Bad for Coverage

MANAGED CARE March 2000. ©2000 MediMedia USA

If patients are allowed to sue employer-sponsored health plans, more than a third of employers that offer coverage now would drop it, according to a survey by Hewitt Associates, a Chicago-area management consultant.

Thirty-six percent of employers who responded said the threat of liability might be enough to warrant new approaches that would partially or fully divorce themselves from the process and give their workers greater authority for decision making. More than 40 percent said they would support a shift to a system of defined contribution, in which employees would be given a voucher to purchase their own mix of health care benefits.