Nation's Employees Value Healthcare Benefits As Major Perk

Despite rising costs, a vast majority of U.S. workers say they are very satisfied with their employer-provided health care benefits. Furthermore, most workers consider the health plan to be their most important benefit and they have little interest in purchasing coverage on their own.

These are among the major findings in a nationwide survey of U.S. workers released by the National Business Group on Health, a non-profit association of 266 large U.S. companies. Mathew Greenwald & Associates, Inc. on behalf of the National Business Group on Health conducted the national online survey in February 2007. A total of 1,619 randomly selected workers participated in the survey. To participate, workers had to be age 22-69, be covered by their employer's health plan, currently work for an employer with at least 2,500 employees and be a decision-maker in their household regarding health care.

"Overall, no aspect of a job is more important to workers in large companies than having good benefits," says Helen Darling, President of the National Business Group on Health. "And, our survey results clearly show that the benefit most important for most workers is the health plan."

Key findings of the survey include:

• Two in three respondents (67%) consider their health plan to be excellent or very good.

• At least seven in 10 workers consider their health plan to be excellent or very good at providing easy access to providers and covering a wide range of services, while two in three say their plan provides a sense of security that they will be able to afford good health care.

• Most employees (65%) feel their health coverage has remained the same over the past three years although six in ten say their costs have increased.

• 75 percent value the health plan as the most important benefit versus 14 percent who consider a retirement savings plan to be most important.

• Workers place high value on having a health plan that is easy to manage, allows freedom to choose doctors, and limits their cost when they visit a doctor or get a prescription -- at least six in ten employees consider these to be very important.

• Less than four in ten consider having a plan that covers serious illness rather than routine care or offering incentives for healthy lifestyles to be very important.

"Providing cost-effective, high quality health care benefits to workers and their families is one of the greatest challenges that Corporate America is facing," says Ms. Darling. "Employers are spending millions and millions of dollars to provide health care benefits, and we hope the results of this survey will give them valuable insight from employees and help them develop and design programs that best meet their overall needs."

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