What percentage of the total health care bill is paid for by the Laboratory?
SCOTT: Actually Berkeley Lab is among the upper echelon of employers in the country when it comes to paying for employees’ health benefits. The national average for company contributions is 80 percent. The Lab pays 90 percent of its employees’ health care costs. VIEW: Why have the costs skyrocketed in the last few years? SCOTT: There are several factors. First is Medicare. It’s the largest consumer and provider of health care reimbursements in the country. Government reimbursement rates are being reduced. Those costs have to be absorbed by insurance providers, by private citizens or by employers. The cost of prescription drugs has also gone up by triple the rate of inflation just last year. This has to do with a more aggressive and costly research effort by pharmaceutical companies and their marketing programs, along with the higher rates they pay for regulatory costs and liability insurance. Doctors and hospitals had been absorbing many of these costs over the last several years. Cons
