Partnering for employee health care.

Employee and retiree health care is no longer a fringe benefit. The issue of who pays what share of this growing expenditure is explosively divisive between employers and employees as well as payors and providers. And what appears to be lost in this debate--and the one point that employers, employees and providers will undoubtedly agree on--is that having one's health and a healthy work force is what really matters. If a partnership can be forged to achieve this basic outcome, the incentives for controlling the cost of health care can be put into place for the partners. HR professionals can help their companies by developing a partnering strategy to effectively address the issue of employee health.