The Idaho Department of Labor’s Canyon County Employer Association is turning its attention to health care at its March 11 meeting.
A senior executive with one of the Northwest’s largest employment benefit administrators will disucss health care reform and other medical benefit issues during the meeting that begins at 11:30 a.m. at the department’s Canyon County office, 4514 Thomas Jefferson St. in Caldwell.
Included in the $20 cost is lunch. Reservations should be made by March 8 by contacting Elizabeth Anzaldua at elizabeth.anzaldua@labor.idaho.gov.
Jon Aubrey is the senior vice president for AmeriBen, a Meridian-based company that has more than 50 years of experience in third-party administration of employee benefit plans. Aubrey is in charge of sales, marketing and account management and recently secured the contract for AmeriBen to administer the medical benefit plan for St. Luke’s Health System.
The department’s 2009 Idaho Fringe Benefit Survey found the share of employers offering medical coverage to their workers had dropped to 56 percent from 63 percent in 2007 and 82 percent in 2002. The decline was concentrated among the state’s smallest employers. Less than 40 percent of employers with fewer than 10 workers and just 70 percent of those with 10 to 49 workers offered coverage of some kind. Combined those two groups employ half the workers in Idaho.
But the survey also found that while employers who continue offering coverage were paying the vast majority of the monthly premium -- anywhere from 80 percent to 93 percent on average – only 56 percent of workers overall who had access to those insurance plans took advantage of them.