Presenting Chronicles

The health insurance industry varies quite a lot around the world, due to the changing nature of the relationship between the private and public healthcare sectors. For example, in most of Europe, Australia, and many Asian nations, comprehensive state-funded health benefits are available to all residents at a free or low cost basis. In contrast to this, the United States of America has a health sector that is mainly private in nature, meaning that most people need to take out individual health insurance contracts to cover themselves in times of need. Along with individual health policies, many companies in the United States also initiate employer-sponsored health insurance schemes. In fact, most private health coverage in the US is employment based, and is a vital aspect of employer relations and individual work contracts.

In contrast to the American system where individual companies sponsor their employees health insurance, private companies in Europe and other nations generally do not get involved in health insurance matters. While private health insurance is still popular in nations with adequate levels of public cover, this is left up to individual people and does not generally integrate with work contracts. For modern companies in the United States however, employer-sponsored health benefits are a very important concern, and almost all large employers in America offer some kind of group health cover to their employees. In a typical scenario in America, employers would pay about 85% of the health insurance premiums for their employees and about 75% for their employees’ family and dependents. While these percentage levels have remained relatively stable for the last decade, variations do exist depending on the nature of the industry and the individual business.

Along with the coverage provided by the vast majority of large companies, small employers in America also often provide health benefits to their employees. With almost 60% of all American workers involved with a small firm, the implications of small business health insurance is far reaching indeed. While small businesses generally have as many options available to them as large business in terms of health insurance, the lower profit margins involved often mean that an adequate level of coverage is not provided to employees. However, there are a number of health brokers who are able to organise group health insurance for small employers, and make sure that all employees have access to a wide range of health services.