New data generated by the Johns Hopkins Nonprofit Listening Post Project reveal that health care costs are producing a so-far hidden crisis for America’s nonprofit organizations and the nearly 13 million workers they employ.
According to a survey conducted in July, 98 percent of responding organizations offering health benefits stated that they are concerned about their organization’s health care costs, and a striking 59 percent ranked health care costs as one of their organization’s top challenges.
Many report that they are already feeling the pinch as organizations have decided to: reduce or cancel health coverage, increase employee co-pays and share of insurance costs, hold down wages, shift to part-time employees, or even reduce mission-critical services.
Previously nonprofits have relied on decent benefits as a strategy for attracting and retaining quality staff. Employee retention issues aside, this trend toward cutting benefits also has the potential for nationwide ramifications, as the nonprofit industry is the fourth largest industry in the U.S.
“Our nation’s health care crisis is now threatening the ability of nonprofits to effectively carry out the tasks our nation expects of them – sheltering the homeless, training the unemployed, educating our youth, building affordable housing, counseling families, delivering health care, giving voice to the powerless, and enriching our lives with culture and the arts,” noted Peter Goldberg, chair of the Listening Post Project Steering Committee and CEO of the Alliance for Children and Families. “This is the hidden dimension of America’s health care crisis, and we need to fix it.”
To read the full report, “Health Care and Nonprofits: The Hidden Dimension of America’s Health Care Crisis,” download it from the Johns Hopkins website.
Health care reform is on everyone’s mind these days. (How could it not be?) Here are some additional resources and analyses:
MCN will be offering to its members a briefing on the health care debate and its implications for non-profit employers on Thursday, September 24, 1:30-3:00 p.m: http://www.mncn.org/event_policy.htm#mcnmember
Here’s a somewhat older (May 4, 2009) but still relevant article by Rick Cohen in NP Quarterly, with info on the cost of the uninsured to NPs, why health insurance reform is (or should be) important to NP workers, and more. Great analysis. Big pic thinking here: http://www.nonprofitquarterly.org/cohenreport/2009/05/04/charities-in-the-calculus-for-paying-for-health-care-reform/
Finally, Brookings recently released a report by a group of health policy experts on reform, including recommendations for addressing some of the challenges faced by small-group markets (many NPs fall into this category):
http://www.brookings.edu/reports/2009/0901_btc.aspx