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Article: The importance of employee health benefits to public and private sector organizations.
- Article from:
- Public Personnel Management
- Article date:
- June 22, 2009
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2009 International Personnel Management Association. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Employer-sponsored health benefits are a vital part of human resources management (HRM) because they compose a large and growing portion of an employee's total compensation package. (1) The costs of health plans have been increasingly focused upon in the media in the United States because of rising health care costs and increased premiums. For instance, premiums rose 9.2% from spring 2004 to spring 2005 and outpaced overall inflation by nearly six percentage points. (2) Overall, premiums have risen 73% since 2000. (3)
The public sector uses benefits as a way of attracting and retaining employees because of its inability to offer salaries as high as the private ...