Survey reveals concerns about direction of congressional proposals.

Proposals for healthcare reform have the people who manage employer-sponsored health plans worried. They say Capitol Hill isn’t paying enough attention to improving the quality of healthcare or containing coverage costs.

Respondents in the second annual Corporate Health Care Policy Forecast Survey expressed serious concerns about many features of healthcare reform that President Barack Obama and several Congressional leaders have embraced, according to a press release.

The concern crossed party lines, said James A. Klein, president of the American Benefits Council.

“Clearly, this is a group of voters that supports healthcare reform and supports the President. A higher percentage of this group than the country as a whole -- including a quarter of those who are Republicans -- voted for President Obama,” Klein said. “Yet, they are very concerned about several issues that are front and center right now."

What the Executives Had to Say

Here’s what the survey indicates about healthcare reform:

            • Altering the tax exclusion of employer-sponsored health benefits will affect employer-sponsorship of plans. Eighty-two percent of respondents want to maintain the exclusion. 

            • Respondents would like to see more focus on cost (51 percent) and quality (72 percent).

            • Respondents said improvements in healthcare quality, such as reporting of quality outcomes and wellness or chronic care programs could have the best effect on their workforce.

            • Quality initiatives that employers offer have not diminished since last year, despite the economic downturn. Ninety-two percent of respondents say their companies provide wellness or chronic care programs.

            • Corporate benefits executives overwhelmingly support maintaining federal Employee Retirement Income Security Act standards (92 percent). ERISA sets minimum standards for most voluntarily established pension and health plans in the private industry to provide protection for individuals in these plans.

            • Three-quarters of respondents say that their company would immediately reduce or cease altogether offering retiree health coverage if legislation were enacted that prevented employers from modifying retiree health care benefits in the future.

            • Eighty-nine percent of respondents think employees would prefer to receive health insurance through employers even if similarly priced options were available through other sources.

In May, Miller & Chevalier, a Washington, D.C. law firm, and the American Benefits Council, a national trade association that focuses on employee benefits, distributed the survey to corporate benefits executives at U.S.-based companies. The survey was completed by 213 respondents.