A health care agenda for business

The health care system in the United States is in crisis, and it has become a business crisis. Costs are spiraling upward, and the implications for businesses and their employees are profound. As employers struggle with unrelenting, double-digit health-insurance cost increases, some firms have decided to drop coverage entirely and many others have shifted costs to employees. And the quality of the health care being paid for by companies and their workers remains highly uneven despite the ever-increasing amounts of money devoted to improving it. (July 2004)