If employees were in charge of designing their company's health care benefits package, what would they choose to include? Some 744 employees at 41 public and private sector organizations in the greater Sacramento area learned how and why health care benefits are selected while playing Choosing Healthplans All Together (CHAT), a computer-based game.

Sacramento Healthcare Decisions conducted the Capitol Region CHAT Project between October 2002 and July 2003 to explore the following issues:

• What do employees consider most important in creating a benefits package when health care options exceed the financial resources to pay for them?
• Does participating in the CHAT process lead to better consumer understanding of decisions about benefit package design and health care trade-offs?

In the game, participants were given 50 "markers" to spend among 16 categories of health care services, but 99 choices existed for placing the markers. Each group had to reach consensus in designing a common benefits package by making realistic compromises and trade-offs.

Learn more about the CHAT project, including key findings, in When Options Exceed Resources: Making Trade-offs in Healthcare Benefits, available on the Sacramento Healthcare Decisions Web site through the link below.