Overview

Although employers are the true payers of health care and benefits, our current system often feels beyond their influence, dysfunctional and opaque. Employers have the leverage to demand transparency, accountability, and meaningful change, but do they? By following a blueprint for action – unite, demand, disrupt, repeat – employers can reclaim their influence and reset expectations across the health care landscape. This requires strategic use of data, refusing to let conflicted intermediaries dictate decisions, and insisting on true partnership from vendors. Now is the time to move beyond short-term cost cutting to focus on innovative benefits, programs and strategies to improve workforce health and better manage growing long-term costs.

Join fellow employers at our 46th annual conference to put this blueprint in motion—uniting voices, demanding better, disrupting the status quo, and repeating until real change takes hold.

Message from the President

Get ready! MBGH’s 2026 Annual Conference is set to shake things up. As one of the most influential health benefits conferences in the nation, we’re putting our Employer Blueprint for Action into motion—together!

Join employer innovators and industry leaders who are leveraging their influence to demand greater transparency, accountability, and value in health care and benefits. As employers, we must use our collective influence, forward-thinking strategies, and candid perspectives to unite and drive real progress, disrupt the status quo, and continue pushing until the system is fair, equitable, and balanced for all health care stakeholders.

Prepare for an extraordinary, enlightening, and action-packed conference that will inspire action to transform the way health care gets delivered. Come join us!

Cheryl Larson, President and CEO, Midwest Business Group on Health (MBGH)