Health Benefits and the Great Resignation By John Staub

The Best Protection Against the Great Resignation

The Great Resignation is proof that employers and employees need better health benefits options. We shouldn’t have been surprised since the research has shown it coming for years. We were warned that more than half of our employees would leave or stay, but actually seeing millions of members of our teams quit their jobs and move to new ones has all but proven that they need one thing—better benefits. Here is why!

Ninety percent of Americans have some kind of health insurance, but 1 in 10 have medical debt—with almost half of them maintaining balances over $10,000. Medical debt in the U.S. has tripled since 2016, and as a result, has caused 2 out of every 3 personal bankruptcies. And while various laws have been put in place to help protect Americans (the Affordable Care Act, which stopped insurance companies from capping their payout, and the No Surprises Act which made surprise bills illegal), they still didn’t solve the biggest problem: the fact that your team doesn’t have the money to pay for their doctor bills even with insurance.

Better Health Care Options

No leader wants to feel like they’re not taking good care of their team. I imagine that most of us are doing the very best that we possibly can! But with millions of workers leaving their jobs, it’s time to look at all the solutions out there to make sure we’re not missing something. Thankfully, there are better health benefits options for us to explore in order to take better care of our teams and protect our organizations from the Great Resignation.

Individual plans, what many consider to be the 401(k)s of health benefits, are here and have been revolutionizing the way health benefits are delivered to employees for 10 years. So if you are looking for the best protection against the Great Resignation for your organization, here are two simple steps to take:

Look at Cheaper Individual Plans

A traditional group plan is a method in which the employer buys one health plan and offers it to their whole team. Harvard explains that individual plans, on the other hand, are when you simply give your employees money and they buy their own plans. Why would you do that? To start, because individual plans are significantly cheaper than group plans for essentially the same type of coverage—generally 50-70% cheaper. And when you don’t offer a group plan, your team then qualifies for tax credits (discounts) to make the plans even cheaper. But perhaps just as meaningful as this is the fact that employees now get to choose what fits their needs best. Almost half of Americans have 50+ individual plans available to them, which means they’ll always be able to find better health benefits options that align with their situation far closer than just a single group plan.

Turn Savings into Money for Bills

Now let’s say you actually do trim 50-70% off your topline costs for health benefits—then what? This is where the magic happens! Remember all of the data above regarding medical debt? This medical debt exists because even though people have medical insurance, they don’t have the dollars they need for their actual medical bills. So when you, the employer, are finding significant savings by moving to individual plans, you can also afford to give your team medical dollars! These dollars could be in the form of HSA (Health Savings Account) contributions or even an HRA (Health Reimbursement Arrangement). No, this delivery method of health benefits may not look the same as it has for the last two decades, but that’s a good thing! By changing the way we’ve always done health benefits, we are now able to find results we’ve never gotten before—better health benefits options at lower costs. Ultimately, this is a way to care better for our people and ensure we can find and keep top talent on our teams.

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John Staub serves as Brand Development Manager for Remodel Health, an HR service used by Christian churches, ministries, businesses and schools across the country that provides innovative health benefits solutions to employers and employees alike. As a national thought leader and expert in the health benefits field, John brings passion and knowledge to the benefits industry.

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