A story on the web by Minnesota Public Radio explains how Minnesotans' enrollment in HMOs dropped last year to its lowest point in 20 years. And this was the place that for years had the greatest penetration of HMO enrollment in the country.
But the key in the story is that this may not be a good thing, that it may be a sign of employer cost-cutting.
One observer in the story says, "They're trying to wring every dollar out of the health care expenditure that they can. And by moving to indemnity and self-funded plans, the employers have flexibility to design their own plans, where in the fully insured HMO model the coverage is really mandated in state law."
And a University of Minnesota economist says, "The risk with that is that if there is any major downturn in the economy as there was at the beginning of the 90s, you could see much less coverage from some of those employers."
Posted by schwitz at August 28, 2006 02:39 PM | TrackBack