The One Utah Health Collaborative has announced the formation of its Technical Advisory Group (TAG), made up of nine major insurers that will collaborate and provide data to estimate Utah’s total healthcare spending baseline and trends. The TAG members and respective organizations represent more than 95 percent of insured Utahns, the collaborative said.
“Healthcare spending is rising and continues to take up a larger proportion of state, employer and family budgets,” said Dr. Sri Bose, the collaborative’s director of research. “The average annual family premium employee contribution in Utah increased by 35 percent from 2017 to 2022 while average hourly wages only increased by 25 percent. For Utah’s employers, families and economy to thrive, we need to measure spending and its trends to ensure we have a sustainable and affordable healthcare system for all.”
“Not only is understanding the rate of healthcare spending growth critical, but to change its course we also need to understand what is driving costs at a statewide level,” said Jaime Wissler, the collaborative’s executive director. “We will evaluate and analyze this and additional data with our stakeholders to better achieve our mission of affordable and accessible healthcare that improves the quality of life for all. This work will help identify what we can best work on together. We are grateful for the incredible support and involvement.” Participating insurers in the new group include Aetna/CVS Health, Cigna, Molina Healthcare of Utah, Public Employment Health Plan, Regence BlueCross BlueShield of Utah, Select Health, UnitedHealthcare, Utah Medicaid and the University of Utah Health Plans.
The TAG is a subset of the collaborative’s Healthcare Spending Task Force launched last year. The task force, along with the Stakeholder Community Board, determined collecting data statewide and conducting analysis would establish a healthcare spending baseline, analyze the state’s total healthcare expenditures and identify trends in spending growth. Data collection and validation will take place in spring and summer of 2024. A report will be released in 2024 at both a state and market level.
In 2022, Gov. Spencer Cox launched the One Utah Health Collaborative, a community-owned 501(c)3 nonprofit aimed at improving the trajectory of healthcare in the state.