With more and more firms moving away from health care insurance plans for their workers, a new need arises for more health literacy among employees and retirees. There will be a direct connection between those who are literate regarding heath care and costs and those who lack basic skills for health care.
While there are many literacy programs to help people understand hobbies, travel, carpentry or foreign language learning… at community colleges… there seem to be fewer literacy classes to help people understand their health insurance programs. Leadership could come from firms who no longer provide health insurance… so that they teach literacy that will enhance a quality of life through better health practices.
I am not sure how this gap has happened… but I do hear more and more people looking to understand the basic verbal and numeric information sent out so they can communicate with health care providers. This need grows increasingly critical as people are left on their own to make life-changing health related choices. Literacy is key to helping people… especially those who retire without benefits … to make wise choices about basic facts and figures relayed to health care programs, mind body connections and simple arithmetic used in calculating facts or understanding numbers linked to say… glucose tests … or heart rate meanings.
Perhaps companies who let go of health care plans… could work together with health care providers as a way to provide leadership needed for health literacy programs. Such a joint venture could lead to reduced health care costs and better health care for people at work and those who leave their work force without traditional plans in their senior years. What do you think?
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