The United States is unique among economically advanced nations in its reliance on employers to provide health benefits voluntarily for workers and their families. Although it is well known that this system fails to reach millions of these individuals as well as others who have no connection to the work place, the system has other weaknesses. It also has many advantages. Because most proposals for health care reform assume some continued role for employers, this book makes an important contribution by describing the strength and limitations of the current system of employment-based health benefits. It provides the data and analysis needed to understand the historical, social, and economic dynamics that have shaped present-day arrangements and outlines what might be done to overcome some of the access, value, and equity problems associated with current employer, insurer, and government policies and practices. Health insurance terminology is often perplexing, and this volume defines essential concepts clearly and carefully. Using an array of primary sources, it provides a store of information on who is covered for what services at what costs, on how programs vary by employer size and industry, and on what governments doâ€"and do not doâ€"to oversee employment-based health programs. A case study adapted from real organizations' experiences illustrates some of the practical challenges in designing, managing, and revising benefit programs. The sometimes unintended and unwanted consequences of employer practices for workers and health care providers are explored. Understanding the concepts of risk, biased risk selection, and risk segmentation is fundamental to sound health care reform. This volume thoroughly examines these key concepts and how they complicate efforts to achieve efficiency and equity in health coverage and health care. With health care reform at the forefront of public attention, this volume will be important to policymakers and regulators, employee benefit managers and other executives, trade associations, and decisionmakers in the health insurance industry, as well as analysts, researchers, and students of health policy.

Distributed to some depository libraries in microfiche.

Awarded a Silver Medal in the category Human Resources and Employee Training from the 2014 Axiom Business Book Awards • Create the inclusive, high performance workforce needed to succeed in an increasing multicultural society and global marketplace• Learn how global organizations and leading professional associations develop integrated HR/diversity talent strategies, and the specific challenges they face• Get practical tools to assess integrated HR/diversity strategic planning, and see why organizations are not making more diversity progress• Develop specific performance indicators to track your progress in implementing synergistic HR/diversity approaches• Case studies of SHRM, federal and state government, global corporations, and higher education illustrate systematic, integrated HR/diversity effortsFor HR professionals and leaders, chief diversity officers, line managers, and executives in the private and public sectors and higher education, this book presents a systematic approach to integrating HR practices and strategic diversity initiatives to create the inclusive, high performance workforce that every enterprise and institution needs to succeed in an increasingly multicultural society and global marketplace.The authors’ point of departure is that talent is the primary strategic asset necessary for organizational survival and success in a demographically diversifying and globally interconnected world. Organizations seeking to attain their full potential in this new talent frontier must optimize their human capital resources by the deliberate development of synergy between human resource (HR) and diversity programs. Failure to integrate and coordinate these two functions will erode organizational competitiveness, whether it is in developing new markets, products, programs, or services.As the first book to provide a concrete roadmap to integrated HR and diversity strategy, the authors identify two critical practices: talent management through the orchestration of HR and diversity programs to enhance organizational capability by unleashing, mobilizing, nurturing, and sustaining the contributions of a diverse and talented workforce; and talent sustainability through the close integration of HR and diversity to continuously develop systems, structures, processes, and a culture that heighten employee commitment, engagement, and inclusion. They further believe that there should be a commonality of practice across all types of organizations, and that each sector can learn from the others to accelerate its adaptation to today’s rapidly shifting national and global realities.Based on the most current research and on interviews with HR and diversity leaders in major organizations, this book provides the reader with concrete strategies and practical tools for implementing a successful and sustainable talent management program. It also addresses common barriers to the development of synergistic HR and diversity strategy, and how to overcome them.Given the evolutionary nature of the integration of HR and diversity, the authors present nine extensive case studies from all organizational sectors, as well as from the two leading Human Resource professional associations – the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) and the College and University Professional Association for Human Resources (CUPA-HR) – to illustrate the dynamic intersection between HR and diversity practices.