Rethinking Small Business Health Insurance

and welcome back well a little over half of all Wisconsin Heights receive their health insurance coverage through their work yet uncertainty in the current health care market has created a burden for some Wisconsin based companies joining us now with an innovative approach to relieve that burden is Erin Kelly with Network health along with Matt Mott tomorrow from Racine area manufacturers and commerce otherwise known as Remax ray Mack thanks for being here you guys thanks for having us so you know it was funny you joke to you like yep we're gonna talk about health insurance under Monday but everybody's got to talk about it true it's it's a

tough conversation it's not something we want to always deal with but you've got to get it in order especially if you're a small business what brought the two of you together because you two are joining together forces yes the partnership is really simple we're both small businesses that live and work in the community and we use the small businesses that make this community great and so our goals are this are similar we're looking to be able to help promote those businesses moving forward yeah and so when we talk about small employer groups looking at

health insurance you know it has an impact on their bottom line yes and companies don't want to take those dollars and put them in to take their profit dollars and put it into health insurance and as i wisconsin company we don't want that either yeah and so we really want to help our small employer groups find quality health insurance that doesn't break their budget and so you know we roll out these products to them that can save them some money and give them a quality plan and they're like yes that's exactly what we want that's what we're going for

yeah and so for you guys with Ray Mac there's chamber members what are the what's the benefit to being a Chamber member for those benefits of being a Chamber member allow you to have access to network health and there is a discount that comes with the insurance if you should be a member of Ray Mac and participate in what network health has to offer okay gotcha so in people like discounts so you guys there's there's different kinds of plans that you've been offering for small businesses and there's this thing called level funded plans what is a level

funded plan a level funded plan it's really a hybrid plan okay of a fully insured plan and a self-insured plan and it really gives employers the best of both worlds so they can take advantage of fixed monthly premiums and then they can get some money back if their group performs well so it's a great form as well as in like their health for the air so if they've got great claims it gives Network health a chance to deliver a check back to that small business so they can invest back in their small business and control their healthcare costs that's awesome and I feel like

this is the time of year when everybody's looking at that bottom line you know that their their reevaluating what they did for the year what they're gonna be looking at for the next year so when they're looking at the bottom line and they're looking for health surance if they're gonna stick with what they have or look at something new what what kind of advice do you give them for when they're looking and what they're looking at I would advice I would give them is to take a look at all plans Network health has a great plan for small businesses many small businesses don't think they can afford insurance for their employees when they actually can

so I would advise them take a look if you're a member of the chamber contact us if you're not a member of the chamber take a look at it as well and see if you should become a member because you could get a great discount with network health yeah I love that you guys have some interesting and fun pictures with Donald Driver what's the deal there a couple years ago we asked Donald our ask Network health if we could get Donald Driver to be the guest speaker at our annual dinner and we were able to put it all together that's great night what did he talk about when he talks when he could I've never had the opportunity to be an event

where he is doing his thing so what did he share Donald talked about business in general and what he's doing life after football but he delivered a very powerful message to some kids that we had special guests that we had there that night about keeping their life on track and doing well in school and that they can succeed at anything I love that I think it's so cool to be able to see him so this time of year what do people know about the the time of year in terms of health care is this the time when everybody can also change their plans for you guys yes most people can change

their plans right now and so they can simply get a quote by contacting Network health and they can research the other chamber opportunities to see if there's additional savings that we can offer them to bring their health insurance down to a little bit more affordable costs what what qualifies for small businesses in terms of when you're looking at being a part of the small business program what qualifies it's really the group size so our sure plan is available for groups with two to 100 employees two to 100 perfect so that I think the big thing is like you said with those size companies you really do need to look at

the bottom line you need to be you know tracking your your dollars in every single area to maintain the business so I think the fact that there's opportunity is really matter a lot for that size business yes that's cool and people can contact you guys as well find out more about the chamber yes they can they can reach out to us either via email or call us at the chamber and we'll put them in touch with network health I love it all right so I'm going to give the information for people so you've got more information about small business health insurance you can visit network health comm and to learn more about sramek or how to become a Rimac

member you can visit Racine chamber.com or you can call the number on your screen it's just two six two six three four nineteen thirty-one thanks so much for being here both of you thank you absolutely