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Anna Louie Sussman of The Wall Street Journal focuses on how middle class workers are struggling to pay for healthcare in a time when wages are stagnant, employers are cost-shifting, and deductibles are on the rise.

Michael Z. Stahl recently wrote for Forbes, “a 2014 survey by the National Small Business Association found that small employers spend an average of 13 hours or $1,274 a month just to keep up with Affordable Care Act compliance.” 

In this article by Kevin Mattson and Maria Carriedo-Ceniceros for the San Diego Tribune, the authors estimate that there will be a shortage of 90,000 primary care doctors in the next five years. Unfortunately CHCs bear the brunt of this issue and face recruitment/retention issues due to the populations they serve and “lower salaries compared to private hospitals and health systems.”

Employee engagement and happiness is key to retaining and attracting top talent, but the elusive question remains: What makes employees happy? Benefits such as a health plan can improve workplace morale, along with many other factors.

Erin Mershon wrote in the Washington Health Policy Week in Review, "large employers are expecting employee health benefit costs to rise by five percent in 2017, less than half the increase expected for consumers who purchase health care on the public exchanges created by the 2010 health law."

Kaiser Health News has released an article by Michelle Andrews, discussing the trend of self-funding among smaller organizations. "Instead of buying a health insurance policy to cover their workers, a growing number of small and midsized companies are opting to pay their employees’ medical claims directly."

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Stephen Miller writes for the Society of Human Resources Management, “On July 1, the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) published an interim final rule with a list of increased penalty amounts for violations of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA), the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA), the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), and other employee benefit and pay statutes.

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Rebecca Greenfield from Bloomberg writes for Benefits Pro about a strange new contradiction in the workplace - employee satisfaction is at its highest level in 10 years, yet workers report low satisfaction with their benefits, compensation, time off, and "respectful treatment of employees" at work, according to an annual survey of 600 employees by the Society for Human Resource Management.

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Jack Craver writes for Benefits Pro about how a recent study by Alegeus demonstrates the stress and overwhelm many consumers feel when faced with healthcare decisions. Topping the list are how to plan for out-of-pocket costs (2/3rds of respondants) and choosing a benefits plan (55%).

Benjamin D. Sommers takes a look at why the annual Spring panic around premium increases for ACA marketplace plans is “overblown.” The fact that most increases will be reduced before open enrollment and that most consumers received premium tax credits are both cited as reasons the initial proposed increases are not a big deal.

Read the full article on The New England Journal of Medicine.