Customer Driven Health Care

Customer Driven Health Care Customer-driven health care (CDHC), refers to third tier health insurance plans that allow members to use health savings accounts (HSAs), Health Reimbursement Accounts (HRAs), or similar medical payment products to pay routine health care expenses directly, while a high-deductible health plan protects them from catastrophic medical expenses. I am against CDHC for a couple of reasons. The term customer-driven, in my opinion, is incorrectly used. First of all, it is not customer-driven but shifting the cost of health care onto the patient’s back. Even employers are happy with the CDHC for it means that they can shift more of the premium onto the employee. Secondly, for those people with chronic illnesses, such as diabetes, with a deductible of $3,000 to $4,000, such people will never be able to save anything in their savings accounts; (HRA’s or HSA’s)
Shifting the Cost By shifting the cost of premiums to the consumer and with health costs continually on the rise, consumers have to take a good hard look at their current health plans. Employers also have to cut back on what they can offer to their employees for the very same reasons. Add to this, the confusion many people have with the Affordable Care Act; also known as, Obamacare, there is a lot at stake. For this paper, I will use my husband’s insurance plan as a comparison. He presently has himself and three dependents on his health care plan through work. The insurance portion that is deducted from his check equals $700 monthly. I visited CoveredCA.com to research our options through the state’s exchange. I found the very same insurance company we have along with the same deductibles and co-pays that we are currently paying. We do not qualify for any state subsidy due to our income and our monthly premium for the same exact plan is $1,929 per month. This equals to us having to pay an additional $1,229 a month if we did not have insurance coverage through my husband’s work. Would