For the first time in several years, U.S. workers are footing nearly the whole bill for the premium increases associated with their employer-provided health insurance. According to a nationwide survey, employers are declining to take more than a tiny share of the load.
The Employer Health Benefits 2010 Annual Survey shows that the average annual premium for employer-provided family health insurance is $13,770 this year. Of that, employees are paying an average of $3,997, an increase of $482, or 14%, from 2009, according to the survey, which was conducted by the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Health Research & Educational Trust.”
“It's the first time that I can remember seeing employers cope with rising health care cost by shifting virtually all of the cost to the workers and it just speaks to the depths of recession and the pressure that employers have been under to hold the line on cost while trying as best as they can to avoid layoffs,” Drew Altman, Ph.D., president and CEO of the Kaiser Family Foundation, said during a press briefing.
The survey authors note that employer-provided health insurance is one piece that has not received enough attention in the health reform debate. They predicted that the increased out-of-pocket cost for employees is not going to stop in the next few years, despite implementation of the Affordable Care Act.
“The longer term trend is that what workers pay for health insurance continues to go up much faster than their wages, while at the same time their insurance continues to get less comprehensive,” Dr. Altman said. “So the insurance that workers get just looks less and less like the more comprehensive coverage that their parents got.”
The survey was conducted between January and May 2010. The findings are based on a telephone survey of benefit managers for 2,046 randomly selected, nonfederal public and private companies with three or more employees.
The survey findings show a modest increase in premiums from last year: The average annual cost of premiums for single coverage was $5,049 in 2010, up 5% from 2009. The average premium for family coverage rose 3% to $13,770.
The average primary care office visit copayment increased from $20 in 2009 to $22 in 2010, and from $28 to $31 for a specialist office visit, according to the findings.
Among the surprising findings of the survey was a significant increase in the percentage of companies offering health benefits in 2010 (69%) compared with 2009 (60%). The researchers attributed the increase to the fact that a greater percentage of very small companies — those with 3–9 employees — offer health insurance as a benefit.
Why the increase occurred was unclear, they noted. One possible explanation was that more very small companies that previously did not offer health insurance as a benefit have failed, shrinking the pool of companies to measure.
More than 150 million nonelderly Americans have employer-sponsored health insurance, making it the leading source of coverage.
Source Elsevier Global Medical News