00:00They're going to provide stipends for employees to buy health insurance for themselves.
00:04Bloomberg's Taylor Nicole Rogers joins us now with more on this.
00:07I didn't even know that this was an option for employers.
00:10It's a pretty new option. It's only been around since 2020,
00:14but it's something that people have been looking into because health insurance has just gotten so expensive.
00:19Companies are spending almost $19,000 per employee these days.
00:23So can employees pocket the money or do they actually have to go to a marketplace to buy their own
00:29insurance?
00:30And is there even a thriving marketplace?
00:31Well, there are the Affordable Care Act marketplaces.
00:35I meant thriving, though.
00:36Whether they're thriving or not is in the eye of the beholder for sure.
00:40But employees are required to spend the money on insurance.
00:43Depending on the plan, if they have anything left over, they can use that for whatever they want or just
00:48take that home.
00:48Don't the economics of health insurance argue for big groups to get insurance coverage
00:53so that the young and healthy help subsidize the older and more fragile?
00:57Exactly.
00:58But another trend employers have been seeing is that those healthy, more profitable workers
01:02have been jumping off of plans altogether.
01:04So the economics are breaking to the point where some employers are saying,
01:09you know what, I'd rather be out of this business altogether.
01:11I think clearly employers are doing this out of necessity.
01:14What does your reporting show whether employees like this change?
01:17Some employees do like it because it gives them more control over the benefits they get.
01:22For example, if they would like to be using a GLP-1, they can choose a plan that uses that.
01:27But from the vast majority I've heard from, they're annoyed that they have to go through
01:31the administrative hassle of sorting through a marketplace.
01:34Marketplace plans are more expensive sometimes.
01:36They have smaller networks of doctors and hospitals.
01:40And they tend to have higher deductibles.
01:42So it doesn't work out for everyone.
01:44Yeah, you take on the risk.
01:45You take on the responsibility of everything related to health care.
01:47It's kind of the same way that we transition from traditional pensions to 401ks.
01:51Exactly.
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