Drafter
Clerk 04/04/2005
title
A MOTION approving the business case of the Benefit Health Information Project as approved by the project review board.
body
WHEREAS, national health care costs in this country are skyrocketing, approaching a national crisis, and
WHEREAS, King County, like other employers in the region, state and nation, is facing an urgent need to be able to provide affordable, available quality health care to employees while effectively containing the rise in employee health care costs, and
WHEREAS, King County the employee benefits budget is expected to increase eleven percent or more per year for at least the next five years, and
WHEREAS, to address this critical issue, an internal county team conducted a focused and comprehensive research effort to seek best practice approaches from research institutes as well as actual applications, and
WHEREAS, in December 2003, King County Executive Ron Sims created the Health Care Advisory Task Force ("HAT Force"), and
WHEREAS, the council adopted the Initial Findings report of the HAT Force by Motion 11890, and
WHEREAS, the report adopted by Motion 11890 endorsed the county's internal benefits and employee health strategy based on best practice approaches and provided a number of recommendations including: engage employees as informed health care consumers by providing education and tools they can use to improve their and their families' personal health status; provide consistent, meaningful, accurate and simple information on benefits administration and the effect that employee decisions can have on costs; provide employees with information and tools to assist with understanding health conditions, making decisions and successfully carrying out self-care actions and obtaining health; research innovative plan designs that create incentives to improve care and reduce costs; create benefit designs that motivate beneficiaries to choose identified quality providers, actively participate wi...

Click here for full text