Employer Health Care Costs to Increase 10% Next Year
The Seattle Times/AP reports that
The nation’s employers are struggling with close to double-digitincreases in health-care costs in 2006, and consequently will beshifting more of that burden to their employees, according to a newsurvey of more than 1,800 firms.
The preliminary survey, released yesterday by Mercer Human ResourceConsulting, found that employers anticipate an almost 10 percentincrease in health-care costs next year, about three times the rate ofgeneral inflation, if they leave benefits unchanged.
But companies that were polled in the survey — both those thatpurchase insurance and firms that are self-insured — are onlyearmarking an average increase of 6.4 percent in their spending. Thatwill mark the third consecutive year that employers are seeing theiractual health-care costs slow as they pass on more of the costs totheir workers.
“Employees are bearing more of the costs because double-digitincreases are unsustainable,” said Blaine Bos, a Minneapolis-basedhealth-care consultant for Mercer.
To keep a lid on costs, Bos said, many employers are using a tacticcalled cost shifting, which demands employees to pay higherdeductibles, premiums and co-payment fees. Employers are also limitingworkers’ choice of insurance plans.