Health Insurance - An Unaccounted-for Workforce Cost
Insurance reform is not enough
One of the action steps that the Wisconsin Council on Developmental Disabilities, the Survival Coalition, People Can't Wait, and the Community Alliance of Providers of Wisconsin (CAPOW) have all discussed as being needed to ensure a quality workforce is the reform of insurance regulations. This would assist community agencies in being able to access health insurance for employees at more reasonable rates. I am hoping that this will be done, but simply reforming regulations won't be enough.
Ultimately, state funding is going to have to increase in order for agencies to continue to offer health insurance to their employees at affordable rates. The pace of medical inflation continues to escalate, irrespective of state and county funding decisions. The money to pay for higher health insurance premiums has to come from somewhere.
Each year that agencies do not get a funding increase, at the same time health insurance and other costs increase by double-digit percentages, it means there is a decrease in the quality of services, because agencies have to "rob Peter to pay Paul." Often, it comes at the expense of scheduling as many staffing hours as we'd like, providing cost-of-living pay increases for staff, keeping the number of people living in community homes at a reasonable level, and maintaining an emphasis on person-centered programming.
