Healthcare costs are becoming a business competitiveness issue.
Among the Midwest Business Group on Health employer members highlighted in its 2026 Pulse of the Purchaser Survey, 100% said rising healthcare costs will affect competitiveness. Drug prices, high-cost claims, and hospital prices were identified as significant threats to affordability.
The implications go well beyond the benefits budget. Rising healthcare costs put pressure on operating margins, limit resources available for other business priorities, and can make it harder to offer competitive compensation and benefits. Shifting more costs to employees may provide short-term financial relief, but it creates additional affordability challenges.
The challenge is not simply having data. It's having complete, usable data and knowing where to act.
Employers need to understand:
- What is driving spending
- Where vendor or plan performance is falling short
- Which actions can produce meaningful savings
- Whether those actions are delivering results
The survey found that 84% of employers are working to identify trends and negotiate better contracts. Yet only 13% use hospital cost and quality information to inform benefit, network, vendor, or contracting decisions.
That gap matters. Better information only creates value when employers can use it to make better decisions.
If healthcare is one of the largest expenses an organization manages, it deserves the same visibility, accountability, and financial discipline as any other major business cost.
If healthcare costs are affecting business competitiveness, employers need more than visibility into spending. They need the ability to identify opportunities, take action, and measure results. Managing health plan performance with the same financial discipline applied to the rest of the business is increasingly a competitive necessity.
Source: Midwest Business Group on Health, 2026 Pulse of the Purchaser Survey