Employee Survey on Health Benefits

It is an evolving health insurance world.   Most surveys of workers on health-related topics are conducted or sponsored by someone with a business or marketing angle in mind, but they can still provide useful information.  So what is going on with employees and health benefits?   A new survey from Benz Communications has some answers to that question.  (Benz Survey)  The survey covers over 2000 employees and was conducted in October 2014.  No data was given on response rate, company size, industry makeup, geographic coverage or survey methods.  70% said that they value their employment-related health benefits.  89% said the health benefits played a role in keeping them at their current company and 48% said they played a major part.  73% said they wouldn’t work for a company without a health plan.  (As a sidebar, how sad is it that health benefits are a major reason why people work where they do?)

Workers also appear motivated by the availability of wellness programs, with 60% saying have access to wellness helped them to make better health choices, while only 15% at companies with no wellness effort said they were similarly motivated.  And workers who felt the company programs helped them with their health choices also were more engaged overall in their work.  Frequent communication about health benefits also appears associated with trust of company leaders, with the 49% of employees expressing trust saying they receive frequent communications on the topic, while only 28% of those who don’t trust leaders (e.g., Bob Dylan and watch the parking meters) say they get frequent health communications.  And as usual, we can’t resist delivering the usual good news about the reform law to the Administration and its hacks in Congress; 73% of respondents said the reform law had caused negative changes to their health benefits and only 16% said it had a positive impact.  Ouch.