The 2027 Healthcare Cost Crisis: What Top Employers Are Prioritizing for Their Benefits Strategy

Health care costs are climbing at nearly 9% a year, and the old tools for managing them are wearing out. Raising deductibles, shopping carriers, and layering on point solutions have not kept the pressure out of the CFO's office. With 2027 planning underway, benefits leaders are being asked to do more than absorb the increase.

In this session, Kirk Czonstka, Garner's SVP of Strategic Alliances, sits down with three senior benefits leaders to talk through what they are actually building in response. Joe Toniolo recently retired from running the health and welfare plan at US Foods. Milt Ezzard leads global benefits at SAP. Molly Strader Fruit leads Total Rewards and HR Operations at ADM after serving as the company's corporate controller. You'll hear why this cost spike feels different from past ones, how a former finance leader now questions every benefit dollar, what actually gets employees and their families to change where they get care, and how each panelist decides which vendors earn a place in the program.

If you are heading into 2027 planning and want to know how peers at large employers are thinking about it, what they are asking of their advisors and vendors, and where they think the industry should go next, this conversation is a good place to start.