A small company: your personal responsibility.

• Author: Lindsay, Craig C.
• Position: Employee Benefits

Health, Care Cost Per Employee: $1,450

What would health-care reform, Clinton-style, mean for Sun Automotive Group? The group -- four new-car dealerships, two used-car lots and a body shop -- grosses over $100 million annually and employs about 235 full-time employees. We now pay about $215,000 annually for our health-care costs. Under the Clinton plan, our projected costs would rise to about $330,000 -- an increase of 53 percent. To cover those costs, we'd have to generate an additional $3 million in sales. And this cost increase assumes that premiums under the Clinton plan wouldn't exceed our current costs, which is very unlikely.

Although that's a daunting prospect, one part of the Clinton plan -- purchasing alliances -- does have a familiar ring. In a sense, we're already using a purchasing group, since our trade association, the Arizona Automobile Dealers Association, provides our health-care insurance. AADA and our insurance carrier have 22 employees dedicated to the local plan. They handle almost all of the plan administration, so our two payroll clerks devote only a few hours each week to group health issues.

Our company offers a fixed contribution to the plan's health-insurance premiums, and the employee simply pays the difference. Typically, employees pay $45 per month for individual coverage, plus an additional $160 per month for family coverage under the preferred-provider organization plan or $150 under the health maintenance organization plan. Fifty-nine percent of our employees are in the HMO plan. If employees want a more expensive plan with additional options, they pay more, and if they can accept the limitations of managed care, they pay less. But we do cushion the cost by offering the coverage within a cafeteria plan, which discounts the employee's burden by at least 28 percent.

Surgery and other in-patient admission costs have been the largest expenses in AADA's group health plan, but managed care and second opinions have helped to cut our costs in this area by about one-third. We also deliver psychiatric care, substance-abuse counseling and prescription drugs in a managed-care setting.

We don't offer our retirees health benefits, and we don't plan to change that policy. We provide them with 401 (k) plans and cafeteria plans to meet their financial goals, but we encourage our employees to plan for themselves and to assume responsibility for their future needs.

Our HMO offers a good deal of preventive care -- annual...