Vision Care: A Model for Health Care Affordability

By Laura Minzer

Across the country, employers are grappling with a challenge that seems to grow more difficult each year: the rising cost of health care.

For large corporations, increasing premiums and benefit costs are increasingly troubling. For businesses, including the more than 1.4 million small and medium-sized businesses that anchor Illinois' economy, the increased costs can be overwhelming. Health care expenses are outpacing inflation and wage growth, forcing employers to make difficult decisions about hiring, compensation, and employee benefits.

The consequences extend beyond the balance sheet. As employers shoulder higher health care costs, workers also face higher premiums, deductibles and out-of-pocket expenses. Many families are delaying care or struggling to afford the care they need. At a time when attracting and retaining talent remains a competitive necessity, maintaining affordable, high-quality benefits has become increasingly difficult.

Yet much of today's health care policy debate, in Illinois and elsewhere, centers on restructuring coverage, new mandates, or shifting costs.

While these proposals may be well-intentioned, they often overlook a more practical question: where in health care are costs being managed effectively, and what lessons can we learn from those examples?

One answer can be found in vision care.

For more than a decade, vision benefits have remained affordable and stable compared with other forms of health coverage. While medical premiums continue to climb year after year, the average vision benefits plan premium for a family remains less than $20 per month, providing Illinois employers with a predictable, high-value benefit at a fraction of the cost of many health care offerings.

That affordability is not accidental.

The vision care model offers useful lessons for policymakers. Vision benefits are typically voluntary, which creates pressure to keep premiums affordable and value clear. The market remains highly competitive, with a multitude of carriers offering vision plans, and that competition creates strong incentives to deliver value, maintain affordable premiums and meet the needs of employers and their employees. Additionally, the coexistence of vision benefits offered through an employer and direct-pay options provides flexibility for consumers who want choices.

Vision care also offers an important preventive health opportunity, as comprehensive eye exams can help identify signs of diabetes, hypertension, and hundreds of other health conditions, often before symptoms appear. Early detection can lead to earlier intervention, improved outcomes and potentially lower long-term health care costs. Optometrists play an important role in connecting people to preventive care and serving as another access point into the broader health care system.

While the vision care model is not a one-to-one solution for the broader health care system, it illustrates an important point: cost containment is possible when markets are structured to promote competition, transparency and consumer choice.

That matters for employers. Benefits are more than an expense. They are an investment in the health of the workforce. Employees value benefits that are affordable, easy to access and support their overall well-being. Employers need solutions that allow them to provide meaningful coverage without continually shifting higher costs onto workers. If policymakers continue to pursue solutions that fail to address underlying cost drivers, or that inadvertently disrupt parts of the system that are working, they risk making an already difficult situation worse.

The path forward should be grounded in pragmatism, not ideology. That means focusing on policies that preserve affordability for employers and employees, promote choice and competition, and encourage preventive care.

At a time when employers and families are searching for relief from rising health care expenses, vision care stands out as one of health care's quiet success stories. It provides access to essential care, supports overall health through prevention and early detection, and remains affordable for employers and employees alike. That's not just a benefit worth preserving. It's a model worth learning from.

Laura Minzer is President of the Illinois Life & Health Insurance Council and a member of the Alliance for Affordable Vision Care.