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The Last Company You Would Expect Is Reinventing Health Benefits
Frustrated with insurers, some large companies — including a certain cable behemoth — are shedding long-held practices and adopting a do-it-yourself approach.
It’s hard to think of a company that seems less likely to transform health care.
It isn’t headquartered in Silicon Valley, with all the venture-backed start-ups. It’s not among the corporate giants — Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway and JPMorgan Chase — that recently announced, with much fanfare, a plan to overhaul the medical-industrial complex for theiremployees.
And it is among the most hated companies in the United States , according to many surveys on customer satisfaction.
It’s Comcast. The nation’s largest cable company — the $169billionPhiladelphia-based behemoth that also controls Universal Parks & Resorts, “Sunday Night Football” and MSNBC — is among a handful of employers declaring progress in reaching a much-desired goal. In the last five years, the company says, its health care costs have stayed nearly flat. They are increasing by about 1 percent a year, well under the 3 percent average of other large employers and below generalinflation.
“They’re the most interesting and creative employer when it comes to health care benefits,” said Dr. Bob Kocher, a partner at Venrock, a venture capital firm whose portfolio companies have done business with Comcast. (The cable company declined over several months to provide executives for an interview on this topic.)
Comcast, which spends roughly $1.3 billion a year on health care for its 225,000 employees and families, has steered away from some of the traditional methods other companies impose to contain medical expenses. It rejected the popular corporate tack of getting employees to shoulder more of the rising costs — high-deductible plans, a mechanism that is notorious for discouraging people from seeking medical help.
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Most employers now require their workers to pay a deductible before their insurance kicks in, with individuals on the hook for $1,500, on average , in upfront payouts, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. Instead, Comcast lowered its deductible to $250 for most of its workers.
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