Survey: Employers Have High Confidence They Can Control Health Care Costs With Pr...( - Nearly 75 percent have or want to ...),Health

- Nearly 75 percent have or want to have a wellness program with a health risk assessment; fewer than 25 percent want taxpayer-funded universal

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INDIANAPOLIS, April 22 /PRNewswire/ -- United Benefit Advisors, LLC (UBA), one of the nation's leading employee benefits advisory organizations, today announced key findings from its 2008 UBA Employer Opinion Survey, which delineates employers' specific health care strategies, health benefits philosophy and opinion, health plan management, and Consumer Driven Health Care.

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The release of the 2008 UBA Employer Opinion Survey contains representative responses from employers by both region and employer size. Of the 1,664 employers polled, 72.5% have or want to have a wellness program that utilizes a health risk assessment; and 59.2% have or desire to implement a chronic disease management program. The survey also found that employers with 200 or more employees were 54% more likely to describe themselves as "leading edge" or "fairly quick" to adopt wellness programs. Firms with more than 1,000 employees produced results that indicated they were two-and-a-half times as likely to describe themselves as "leading edge" or "fairly quick" concerning disease management program adoption.

"The tide has clearly turned in that the majority of employers believe in the long-term value and positive impact that comprehensive wellness and disease management programs provide," said William Stafford, Vice President, Member Services for UBA. "Keeping the healthy employees healthy while stabilizing and/or improving the health of employees with chronic conditions will dramatically improve everyone's health and quality of life."

Other clear trends emerged related to employers' perspective on what the government's ro
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