Boeing Sets Stage For Change Move To Managed Care Could Spark Regional Revolution

Boeing Co.’s attempt to wean employees from their traditional health insurance plan to a “managed care” approach could help speed a regional revolution in health insurance, industry officials say.

May is open enrollment month at Boeing. Some 74,000 Puget Sound-area workers must decide if they want to keep their traditional plan or take advantage of $1,200 in company incentives to join one of four new managed care plans that would limit their choices but save them money.

Boeing is trying to convince its workers that the traditional plan - simple, comprehensive and fully paid - is a dinosaur that should be abandoned.

Industry observers say if Boeing’s campaign is successful, it will lend added legitimacy to the managed care approach.

“This is a very significant month for health insurance in Washington state,” said James A. Peterson, a 20-year veteran of the insurance business and former manager of the state’s $3 billion Medicaid program.

“If Boeing can get a significant number of its employees to try managed care, the ripple effect will be tremendous. It will give managed care the respectability it needs to really take off.”

Peterson said print, radio and billboard ads for the competing insurance plans are making Boeing workers - and the rest of the Puget Sound region - more aware of their choices as health care consumers.

“Boeing is drawing attention from all over the state and the nation. If they can get people into these plans, we’ll see more and more companies taking a similar approach,” said Peterson, now president and CEO of Unified Physicians of Washington, a new health insurance company based in Federal Way.

Boeing paid an average of nearly $4,200 per employee on health care last year. The company’s per-employee health insurance costs rose nearly 250 percent in the past eight years.