Big employers propose health benefits overhaul

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Some of the biggest U.S. employers said on Wednesday health care coverage and retirement plans for American workers should be delivered by competing third-party benefit administrators such as banks, investment companies and insurers.

Employers would continue to fund health insurance and retirement benefits, but would pool their purchasing power and outsource administrative functions to save money under the proposal, the ERISA Industry Committee said.

The committee, which includes executives from IBM and Tyco International Ltd., spent more than a year studying how to overhaul corporate health and retirement benefits to rein in soaring employer costs.

"Deficiencies in the current system clearly are challenging employers and, in some cases, the viability of the benefits system in general," the committee said in its report.

For the nearly 45 million Americans lacking any health coverage from an employer or government programs for the poor and elderly, the committee's proposal would make available a package of benefits. That portion of the proposal would require subsidies from state and federal government and individual contributions.

"This is not a simple proposal but neither is the current system," said Mark Ugoretz, president of ERISA Industry Committee. The organization, which lobbies for U.S. corporations on employee benefit issues, takes its name from the federal law known as the Employee Retirement Income Security Act.

A key plank in the proposal is for at least two benefit administrators to compete for business from both employers and workers, based on geography, the panel said. The federal government would also need to set uniform national standards for health and retirement benefits in the packages.

"We want to retain the employer commitment to pension, health and post-employment security," Ugoretz said in an interview. "Our proposal occupies the middle ground between single payer (programs) and individualized arrangements."

The committee's plan is intended as a starting point for discussions with consumer groups, health insurers, labor unions and Wall Street to try and reach consensus for legislation in 2009, he said.

Employers would also be free to continue offering their existing benefits programs. "This whole program that we're proposing would be running parallel with the current system so employers who did not find it to their advantage could continue to operate their own plans," Ugoretz said.

Earlier this year, Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and the Service Employees International Union launched a campaign calling for universal health care coverage for all Americans by 2012, but offered no specific proposals. The same union also joined the Business Roundtable and AARP, representing older Americans, in January to urge Congress to focus on health care issues.

The ERISA committee's report was posted on the Internet here .