Breaking from the Group, by Kevin Sweeney, Benefit News, November 2005.

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"There is a major earthquake coming," says Paul Zane Pilzer, author of
The New Health Insurance Solution: How to Get Cheaper,
Better Coverage without a Traditional Employer Plan.
"The individual insurance market showed up overnight. If you explain
the cost savings to small employers, they immediately stampede for
them. This can be the ultimate defined contribution health care
rather than defined benefit."  

Individual policies on the rise
     The U.S. Census Bureau reports that the number of people who bought health insurance on their own rose by 475,000 in 2004 to number some 30 million people. The Bureau indicates that the largest jump within this group came in the form of individual insurance.
     Though it is hard to know just how many of these people opted for individual insurance due to employer issues, the Bureau did report that the percentage of Americans covered by employment-based health insurance fell from 60.4% in 2003 to 58.8% in 2004.
     "The individual market is playing a vital and increasingly important role in our nation's health care system," says Karen Ignagni, president of America's
 

Easing the burden
     Roger Schultz, vice president of employee benefits for the broker firm J. Smith Lanier & Co., points out that companies can issue individual medical policies through insurers so that employees can take coverage with them from job to job.
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