Articles

Dallas Employee Benefits and Dallas Group Health: As Important as Wages

by Michael Chapman

In fact, today, only about half of all companies offer group health insurance as a benefit to their employees. Many service companies such as retailers also have a policy of hiring mainly part time workers who are not eligible for employee benefits such as group health insurance. And many low wage workers cannot afford the portion of the cost of group health insurance that the employee must pay for their own and their family's coverage. The average cost to insure an individual in a group health plan today is between four to five thousand dollars per year per person. If the employer pays for one half of the employee's health insurance and none of coverage for the employee's dependents, that means that an employee with a spouse and two children may have to pay between $1,000 to $1,500 per month for group health insurance coverage. For many low wage workers, this is not affordable, so the employee goes without group health insurance coverage, and rely on public hospital emergency rooms for health care.

Today, workers can expect to pay some if not all of their health insurance costs. Even when a company covers the employee it may not pay for Dallas employee benefits for the employee's family. Forget about getting your spouse or child on the policy without paying more. One problem is that smaller employers are faced with higher premiums due to the low number of employees to spread the risk out. So what can an employer do to offer medical insurance and keep its costs low?

A way to lower the costs for the companies is a high deductible Dallas group medical insurance plan. This covers employees for catastrohic health costs, while employees may pay out of pocket for more of their health care expenses. Despite this the employees can purchase a medical insurance gap plan that can cover all or part of their deductible risk. Many small Dallas companies still have no choice except to offer high deductible coverage because of the high cost of covering their employees. This may leave some employees with existing healh conditions to remain uncovered by the policies or to wait for services. This is still an important benefit to employees even though they have to bear a portion of the costs.

Universal insurance coverage would offer insurance to all Americans, regardless of employment status. The need for universal coverage has been addressed by many presidential candidates recently, although none of the candidates has presented a definite plan for this universal coverage. Our nation spends more per capita than any other nation, but because of how our system works right now, it will be a long time before any universal insurance plan is in effect.

People like clerks, maids, salespersons and delivery persons, who all work for an hourly wage have no Dallas employee benefits. They often do not have health insurance and also lose pay if they are sick. Since their employers require a note from the doctor if they are sick for more than one day, they not only lose pay but also have to pay to come back to work. These people spend most of their lives at the same type of job.

Many employees in small Dallas businesses today will not receive even basic coverage or benefits. Dallas employee benefitshave become a thing of the past for small businesses. Often the only people who receive benefits are employees of larger businesses, or government employees. Smaller businesses and startup businesses in Dallas often struggle with the high costs of running a business

In the past, many Dallas companies provided generous benefits to their employees. These often included family health insurance and paid time off. Things have changed over the last decade and the cost of providing Dallas employee benefits has skyrocketed. Today, most employers do not pick up the cost of health insurance for the family of the employee. Smaller companies may provide a high deductible Dallas group health insurance plan, or Dallas group medical insurance plan with potentially higher out of pocket major medical expense risk for the employee. The high deductible can be a concern for employees. One thing employees can do is purchase a medical insurance gap plan. These medical insurance gap plans can reduce the risk of an employee having to pay higher major medical expensesthat their group health insurance plan does not cover. The medical insurance gap plans are very affordable.

Published May 16th, 2007

Filed in Business, Career


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