King County HRI Toolkit

 

King County Health Reform Initiative Toolkit

Introduction

King County Executive Ron Sims created a groundbreaking, innovative program to cut health care costs at a time when organizations across the nation are being crippled by the cost of providing health care to their employees. Unlike other approaches that reduce benefits or increase premium shares, King County’s approach seeks to control costs by reducing the amount its employees pay for health care – by improving the quality of care they receive from providers and improving their health so they don’t contract the kinds of chronic diseases that are costly to treat.

The program launched in 2005 and initial results are very positive. As a result, King County receives numerous inquiries about how our program is designed, the impacts and the lessons we have learned along the way. This toolkit is designed to answer these and many more questions.

“I refuse to accept that the only strategy is to shift significant costs to employees or cut benefits. It’s time for bold, innovative strategies.”
-- King County Executive Ron Sims, 2004 budget speech

This toolkit features:

• HRI Overview
• Why King County created the Health Reform Initiative
• Design of the Health Reform Initiative
  • Healthy Incentives Benefit program
  • A work environment that supports employees' efforts to get healthy
  • Puget Sound Health Alliance, a regional approach to containing health care costs
• Partnership with labor
  • Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) between management and labor on the Health Reform Initiative
  • Joint Labor Management Insurance Committee, an ongoing partnership overseeing the program
  • Powerpoint presentation on partnership between management and labor
• Employee outreach strategy
• Measurement and evaluation of program
• Timeline
• Lessons learned
• For more information