CAHI: Try Payroll-Deduction Medical

A think tank analyst says the federal government should encourage employers to offer individual health coverage to employees on a voluntary, employee-paid basis.

J.P. Wieske, director of state affairs at the Council for Affordable Health Insurance, Alexandria, Va., outlines the proposal in a discussion of “list billing,” or programs that let insurers send employers a single bill for all employees who have agreed to buy coverage through the list-billing arrangement.

In some states, small group coverage is cheaper than individual coverage. But a list-billing option would be useful in states where the individual health insurance market is working better than the small group market, Wieske writes in a commentary that presents his proposal.

Policies purchased through a voluntary, payroll-deduction system could be individually underwritten, but employees who could not get coverage through the payroll-deduction system could get it through state high-risk pools, Wieske writes.