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Business Groups Seek Lower Health Costs; Nine From Suburbs Join Regional Insurance Effort

Posted on: Thursday, 11 August 2005, 18:00 CDT

Nine suburban chambers of commerce have banded together to join a large group of businesses in southeastern Wisconsin in an effort to offer more affordable health insurance to chamber members.

The Brookfield, Grafton, Hartford, Menomonee Falls, Mequon- Thiensville, Oconomowoc, Sussex, West Bend and West Suburban chambers formed the Regional Chamber Coalition. The organization looks for solutions to the fast-increasing cost of providing health insurance to employees of the mostly small businesses that are chamber members.

The coalition recently joined Business Health Care Group of Southeastern Wisconsin, an organization that some of the region's largest employers formed to find ways to slow the rise in health care costs and to make full use of its members' bargaining power.

Among the group's first members were Rockwell Automation Inc.; Harley-Davidson Inc.; Midwest Air Group Inc., the parent of Midwest Airlines; Miller Brewing Co.; Briggs & Stratton Corp.; and Journal Communications Inc., which publishes the Journal Sentinel.

As smaller businesses struggle with rising health care costs and look for ways to get leverage in negotiating rates with providers, they have looked to Business Health Care Group to get more bargaining power, said Dianne Kiehl, the group's executive director.

The Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce and a coalition of Ozaukee County businesses also have joined the group, she said.

The suburban coalition of chambers includes more than 3,500 businesses representing more than 16,000 health care consumers.

"The value of this is that they now have something to offer their members," Kiehl said of the advantage for the chambers' small- business members in becoming part of the larger group.

The group has worked with Humana to offer an exclusive health insurance plan to member businesses.

"Given that the cost of health care is a critical issue for many small businesses, it is important to assist in finding a solution for employers who want to provide this important benefit for their employees," said Christopher Zuzick, Sussex chamber board member and regional vice president of Capvest Venture Fund.

Kiehl said that by joining Business Health Care Group, the businesses that are members of the chamber coalition have a greater voice in shaping the health care market in southeastern Wisconsin.

"The goal is to get our market to reflect other Midwestern cities in terms of prices," she said.

Studies have shown the Milwaukee regional health care market to be one of the highest-cost markets in the country.

The business group negotiates prices with health care providers and uses the strength of its numbers to reshape the regional health care market, Kiehl said.

"The long-range strategy is to move the market by getting the business community to walk in unison," she said.

The group also is working to get more information to consumers so they can make better health care choices, Kiehl said.

Although the largest area companies created the group, she said, the goal always was to include small businesses, such as those represented by chamber members.

Copyright 2005, Journal Sentinel Inc. All rights reserved. (Note: This notice does not apply to those news items already copyrighted and received through wire services or other media.)

Source: Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

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