The figures above can be found in the NAM’s Q2 2024 Manufacturers’ Outlook Survey.
Health Care
We need to reduce soaring health care costs, improve the efficiency of the current system and enhance the quality of care. The NAM is working aggressively to drive down health care costs and ensure reforms to America’s health care system are smart and effective—and work for manufacturers and our employees.
Key Facts
66%
of manufacturers cited rising health care and insurance costs as a primary business concern
67%
of manufacturers cited the inability to attract and retain employees as their top primary challenge
Keeping Americans Healthy and Productive; Unleashing Innovation
As leaders in the employer-sponsored health care system that provides quality benefits to approximately half the population, manufacturers go to great lengths to provide robust health insurance offerings to employees. Approximately 99% of NAM member companies offer health benefits to maintain a healthy workforce and attract and retain talent—and fundamentally because they believe it is the right thing to do for their employees.
Drawing on the expertise of the private sector, the government should recognize that employers have an incentive and deep commitment to designing health care plans that improve outcomes while increasing the value and quality of the coverage provided.
Manufacturers across America are continually developing and implementing innovative health care benefits in order to deliver the highest quality care to our employees. Meanwhile, health care costs continue to climb, remaining a major headwind for manufacturers large and small. Policymakers need to remove barriers, such as onerous health care tax burdens, that decrease competitiveness and hinder manufacturers’ ability to provide employees the best care possible.
When Americans face soaring prices for medicines or treatments, there’s a good chance that is because a [pharmacy benefit manager] has driven up the price. These middlemen operate with minimal transparency, and their practices distort the market, increasing the list prices patients pay for medicines while making it more difficult for manufacturers to offer quality, affordable health care benefits.
What Should We Do Now?
Below are critical policy recommendations that Congress and the president should act on to promote innovation and value by encouraging reforms that are in step with the next generation of health care delivery.
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1Protect employer-sponsored coverage by maintaining tax-exempt status of employee health benefits to avoid higher premiums for workers and families.
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2Support policies that allow employers to increasingly use innovative approaches to providing coverage for their employees, such as wellness programs, association health plans and direct primary care.
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3Support reforms that move from a fee-for-service or volume-based system to a value-based system.
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4Reduce patient out-of-pocket costs by improving health savings accounts.
Share Your Voice
By sharing our voices, manufacturers play a vital role in advocating for innovation in health care delivery and promoting a health care agenda that allows those positive developments to flourish.
We encourage you to share with us your thoughts on why efficiencies and improvements in health care delivery should and can be achieved. In doing so, you’re helping to equip the NAM with our most powerful advocacy tool: the manufacturing voice.
