INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Researchers say workers are paying a larger portion of health insurance costs as businesses, trying to ride out the economic downturn, shift more of the burden to their employees.
The average employee contribution toward premiums for family coverage climbed 14 percent this year to nearly $4,000, according to a report by the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Health Research and Educational Trust released Thursday. Contributions for single coverage grew 15 percent.
Total premiums rose a modest 3 percent for family coverage and 5 percent for single employees. But Kaiser Family Foundation CEO Drew Altman said companies passed most of those increases on to workers instead of absorbing them as they usually do.
The nonprofit Kaiser and the research trust surveyed more than 3,000 randomly selected companies from across the country earlier this year.
Researchers found that businesses still pay at least 70 percent of the total premium, on average, for their workers. But they’re asking workers to chip in more, and that goes beyond increasing the premium contribution.
“The coverage that employees get is looking less and less like the coverage that their parents used to get,” Altman said.
A growing percentage of workers are covered by health insurance that requires them to pay a deductible of $1,000 or more before most coverage starts. The increase is most striking with smaller companies, where 46 percent of workers are enrolled in high-deductible plans, up from 16 percent in 2006.
At companies with 200 or more employees, 17 percent of covered workers had high-deductible plans, up from 6 percent four years ago.
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Brooke Lorren
Posted on September 3, 2010 at 1:42pmAt the last place that dh worked at that offered health insurance coverage, it was 3x more expensive to get a plan with our employer than to just buy our own policy. It would cost us $200 a month to insure the whole family through our own policy, but $600 a month through the employer. We chose to insure ourselves.
Report Post »EqualJustice
Posted on September 3, 2010 at 1:08pmI have several friends who are doctors… please HELP THEM HELP YOU. They are asking you to help REPEAL OBAMACARE. Support the REAL doctors, not the ones with the government issued white coats in the Rose Garden. (I hope they kept those rose colored glasses) Read the ‘Waiting Room Letter’. Thanks. http://docs4patientcare.org/
Report Post »02NOV2010
Posted on September 3, 2010 at 12:21pmRead this: http://www.ncpa.org/pdfs/What-Does-Health-Reform-Mean-for-You-A-Consumers-Guide.pdf
Report Post »JeanWTPUSA
Posted on September 3, 2010 at 5:20amI don’t think many people have a good understanding of all of the problems relating to insurance companies, healthcare costs, pre-existing conditions and the health care reform law. Many of us have been conditioned to believe certain things related to insurance companies and costs are true, when many are half true or just down right FALSE. Please take the time to educate yourself so you are empowered with the truth. Gov’t dropped the ball 14 years ago when they drafted the HIPPA portability laws and failed to provide continuation of coverage for the millions of individuals that purchase their own health plan on the individual market. This is the primary reason pre-existing condition is even in our vocabulary. For a long time now, there has been a plan to move the USA to a single payer system. It just didn’t start with the Obama administration. It’s been in play since before Bill Clinton was in office. Learn the truth at http://www.truthaboutobamacare.com
Report Post »honestyplease
Posted on September 3, 2010 at 3:12amCosts have definitaly been going up… It’s the insurance companies, not the employers… This is getting rediculous.
Report Post »chattycathy
Posted on September 3, 2010 at 8:15amWhat facts are you using to come to this conclusion?
Report Post »honestPat
Posted on September 3, 2010 at 1:52amI work in the health care field. I can tell you that as soon as the legistation was signed we lost hundreds of jobs as the administrators tried to find ways to “centralize” departments and duties. It may seem like a good way of doing business, but it was bad for the “rural” hospitals and doctors offices who support the “Metro”. Also, our health care premiums were to raise at least 100% or more unless we submitted to a “screening” which was confidential. Of course, it’s really not confidential, since the results have to be submitted to the governing body. I’m afraid these results will be used to trim even more jobs, those folks who‘s screening results were not deemed optimal for not only good health but those who won’t cost the company health dollars down the road.
Report Post »Most_awarE
Posted on September 2, 2010 at 11:30pmFree heatlth care is a myth.
Report Post »My premiums went up 15 percent from $62 to $72.
Thanks to Barack!
rcole02
Posted on September 2, 2010 at 10:18pmThis should not suprise anyone. We were all warned what would happen if this thing passed. Now we have to work to repeal it.
Report Post »CTNOTFOROBAMA
Posted on September 2, 2010 at 9:49pmIt is absolutely true that “workers” bear more of the health insurance premiums and under the current administration this trend will continue for the foreseeable future! The irony here is who gets the last laugh? The hardworking folks or the ones who sit back and receive their health care for free? I happen work for a US based manufacturing firm in Connecticut, where I am responsible for the design and analysis of employee benefits for roughly 4,000 US based employees.
Historically our company has strived to provide competitive medical plans to our employees and have sought to keep the employer/employee cost share at 70/30 respectively. We are self insured, meaning we pay all of our employee’s medical bills out of pocket, which has both its advantages and disadvantages, those of which I won’t get into.
Since the passing of the PPACA earlier this year, it has only caused our forecasted health care costs for 2011 and beyond to radically increase year-over-year. What most don’t realize, nor will the medial tell you, is that this initial increase in cost fails to factor in medical trend, which despite what the media says is not a mere 9%….try 13 to 18%. In aggregate, companies are facing potential increases on a year-to-year basis of over 20%!
When coupled with our current poor economic climate, businesses simply cannot afford to take on an additional 15 to 20% each year in medical costs, therefore that cost has to be shifted elsewhere….hence more of a cost burden on its employees. When faced with the choice of either closing up shop or shifting more cost to employees, it becomes an easy decision.
It is truly sad that our government continues to sell us “lemon” when it comes to health care reform. When you sift through the pages and pages of legislation contained within the PPACA and get to the heart of what the Obama Adminstration is trying to do, you will see that it is not to provide health care to those who can’t afford it. It is not to “clean up” the health care system or the “fat cat” insurance companies…it is simply to take from those that have and give to those that don’t; thus the redistribution of wealth.
If congress and the Obama administration truly had the needs of the American people in their minds, they would have taken more time to design a bill/health care program that actually addressed the deficiencies in our health care system and not pass a mediocre (at best) bill that less than 30% of the American people were in favor of. I’m calling SHENANIGANS!!!!
Report Post »PlaneRick
Posted on September 2, 2010 at 9:03pmThanks for nothing health insurance companies. I am lucky enough to be fully covered by employer, but I don’t see any other options to “Obama-Care”. At least he is coming up with something other than the current system. COME ON Republicans and Tea-Partiers, think up a better option to make me believe in !!! Quit bashing something new, when you can use your energies to construct either a better system or a better approach, not just leave it the way it is stuff (free-market is why we have insurance to begin with). Before I was insured, I almost went bankrupt do to medical bills and over 60% of bankruptcies in this country were for the same reason (even for the insured). I’ll take Obama-Care before I stay with this system as-is.
Report Post »TOSG
Posted on September 2, 2010 at 10:23pmTestify brother!
Report Post »DarthHubrys
Posted on September 2, 2010 at 8:38pmAll is proceeding as I have foreseen and according to plan…
The insurance companies will take whatever they can from those who can pay the premiums and stash it in assets the IRS cannot touch while Obamacare destroys the medical sector. If you aren’t one of the power brokers, and I am not, we will be serfs. My company gives me some minimal coverage, but in six years with them, I’ve not felt the need to subject myself to the AMA.
didn’t one of the big companies announce they were getting out of the game already? It’s part of the Cloward and Piven thing, I’m thinking.
Good info Cathy, I used a different source, but used published facts when discussing the pros and cons of socialized medicine and the “obscene profit margins” with my mother. She is a socialist.
Report Post »Media Joe
Posted on September 2, 2010 at 8:24pmOf course the common folk will pay for Obamacare – the legislation was never about was never about lowering costs and reforming the system.
It was always about the redistribution of wealth.
Report Post »Jynnipher
Posted on September 2, 2010 at 11:06pmYou nailed it right on the head…redistribution of wealth.
Report Post »02NOV2010
Posted on September 2, 2010 at 8:16pmThis Kaiser study only deals with the employer-sponsored healthcare implications of the economic downturn. It doesn’t even mention the forthcoming economic impact of the massive healthcare law enacted earlier this year by the President and the Democrat-controlled Congress. The new healthcare law absolutely WILL cause employers to take on greater risk and cost within their plans. Many employers will eventually dump their plans altogether and refer their employees to — you guessed it — the government system. Read this analysis, and pray we find our way out of this mess: http://www.ncpa.org/pdfs/What-Does-Health-Reform-Mean-for-You-A-Consumers-Guide.pdf
Report Post »JeffinMaine
Posted on September 2, 2010 at 7:54pmI’m 56…have a few aches and pains and live with arthritic pain every day…I work for a company that is too small to offer health insurance, which is normal in the world I live and grew up in…I come from a blue-collar, non-union family where we didn’t go to the hospital unless the limb we broke was at an un-natural angle or we couldn’t stop the bleeding!
I’m not pissed about not having insurance…I’m happy that I have a job after being unemployed for over a year! I’d love to have insurance, and I will, when I decide that it’s something I can afford, or, I can work myself into a position where I’m important enough to my company so that they want to help me pay for it…In the mean time, it’s my responsibility to pay for my own medical bills…and if I don’t want medical bills, it’s my responsibility to live in a way where I can increase my odds of being healthy….
I might be convinced that, maybe, we should all think about sharing the burden of catastrophic care that would be paid for by a payroll tax, since we’re all (well, those with insurance) paying for “free” care through the insurance premiums that have to be paid anyway…But, I absolutely oppose the idea that a nanny government has any business forcing me to pay a fine when I elect to pay my own way!
Report Post »ladyingray
Posted on September 2, 2010 at 7:27pm“From what I hear, the way this thing will play out the only winners will again be the insurers…”
Um, no. What is covered by insurance will be determined by the feds, the Secretary of Health and Human Services IIRC, and the rate of reimbursement will also be set by the feds.
Single payor is coming, people….
Report Post »desertrider06
Posted on September 2, 2010 at 7:00pmThis is the first time since I have been working that I can’t afford the health insurance threw the company I work for. It would cost me over 200.00 dollars a week for just my son and I….tell me that something is just wrong with this country and where it is headed. So now I have to go and get my owen insurance the problem is that I have to wait until what September 24 to do so because my son, who has ADHD the insurance companies wont take him because of the high cost of his medicine……so until then we don’t have insurance…he has meds until end the of September. This needs to stop some how some way.
Report Post »CONSERVATIVEFIRST
Posted on September 2, 2010 at 6:46pmGovernment mandates on any business only drive up cost of the final product for consumers. Regardin insurance, if my employer is required to provide maternity care, drug abuse treatment, mental health, just a few examples I do not need, I still pay. Business has 3 options. Pass the cost on to the employee, pass it on in cost of the end product or service, or eliminate it and give the Socialist what they want forcing people into ObamaCare. Any way you look at it, we pay either as an employee, purchaser of the goods or service, or in taxes.
Report Post »joethevoter
Posted on September 2, 2010 at 6:45pmInsurance companies started jacking up prices last year…having record profits was not enough for them…they want MORE and MORE.
Report Post »chattycathy
Posted on September 2, 2010 at 8:15pmJoe…. that is simply not fact! In late summer/fall 2009, info was released by Morningstar indicating that health insurance companies had a very modest profit margin of approximately 3.4%. This placed the health insurance industry at approximately 87 out of 215 industries in regards to profits. For comparison, Google’s profit margin was 20.6% and Microsoft was 24.9% on the same report. The problem with health care is NOT the profit margin of health insurance companies. It’s lack of competition across state lines, lack of tort reform, government coverage mandates, the unfortunate but often unnecessary practice of defensive medicine and a host of other issues. Of course, our idiotic Democrat-controlled Congress failed to address any of the real issues because their only objective was to gain control over our health care and, thus, our lives!
(http://money.usnews.com/money/blogs/flowchart/2009/08/25/why-health-insurers-make-lousy-villains.html)
Report Post »PlaneRick
Posted on September 2, 2010 at 9:13pmWhile that might be their profit margin, their money on demand is increase, such as one Anthen Blue Cross/Blue Shield sub. that has increased their money on demond supply from a o1:2 ratio (need to available) to 1:3 over the past few years for no rational or explained reason. They did so through increases premiums. That money is the same that they can write off into a non-profit use without any accountability to the insured. The profits aren’t the only thing use should be looking at.
Report Post »zoots
Posted on September 2, 2010 at 9:53pmI think that major health insurance companies are implicitly responsible for our health care costs being out of control. In reality, insurers are in a position to make an effort at moderating the cost of health care by making a reasonable effort at limiting fraud.
A few years ago I began receiving multiple Blue Cross/Blue Shield statements for services rendered by a healthcare provider. In several instances, the provider was billing four times or more for a service they performed once. I carefully went through the BC/BS statements and documented over $9,600.00 in duplicate charges, made an appointment with BC/BS administrative personnel and presented my thoroughly documented findings. To my amazement, I was told that the dollar amount to simply too “small” for them to consider recovering their overpayments or bring fraud charges against the provider! How amazing was that – presented with fully documented evidence of clearly fraudulent billing practices by a provider and offering to sign a sworn affidavit that the services claimed were never rendered (and in fact, impossible to render) this major health insurer verbally dismissed it all by saying that the dollar amount (just over $9,600.00) was “too small” to justify an investigation!
How many of us actually go through our healthcare insures statements and match them up with services performed? Could it be that my experiences are totally unique? My guess is that billions of what ends up being our hard earned dollars are squandered each year on fraudulent billing.
Report Post »makom
Posted on September 2, 2010 at 6:18pmWho did you think would pay the cost of health care.
Report Post »KentuckyFire
Posted on September 2, 2010 at 6:12pmThis is just a stepping stone to a Public Option, imho. First they will increase costs to employers (already happening), then the employers will increase costs to employees, then eventually the employers will drop healthcare altogether, forcing people to the government plan. Then the government will own your “life” essentially, driving private health care companies out of business and having total control over your plan. This is a disaster just waiting to happen.
Report Post »PlaneRick
Posted on September 2, 2010 at 9:06pmwhat do you mean “First”. The increases are nothing new and have been going on for over ten years, irrelevant to inflation or increases of costs to a plan group or insurer. This is nothing new.
Report Post »EqualJustice
Posted on September 3, 2010 at 10:30amObama care does NOTHING to address the rising cost of HC itself or the cost of insurance premiums! It just adds more people who are not paying premiums and forces private insurance companies to pay for pre-existing condidtions. If someone finds out they have a serious illness or a condition that will be expensive and have no insurance, they can apply now and NOT be turned down. Policy holders will end up paying for this in the form of MUCH higher premiums. This is what was expected to happen. Premiums will be so high that employers will stop covering, paying the fine instead, as will many individuals, since most people will then be priced out of the private market. Then the government takes over HC, which was the original goal. Health care costs will continue to rise and if the government is paying, expect CUTS in services AND CARE. REPEAL OBAMACARE.
Report Post »SeekHIMFirst
Posted on September 2, 2010 at 6:10pmCORRECTION – “workers compensation”
Report Post »darleneh7
Posted on September 2, 2010 at 6:09pmTeachers & other unions need to do the same!
Report Post »CHAZIE
Posted on September 3, 2010 at 8:19amSure agree with that – I pay 50% of my healthcare costs, have no company provided pension (401K only) and can’t retire and double dip. I guess I should have taken that government job!
Report Post »SeekHIMFirst
Posted on September 2, 2010 at 6:07pmAre employers legally responsible for making sure that their employees have health insurance? I was under the impression that “workers compendation” was a have to, but health insurance was a perk, something they could choose to entice excellent employees with in a benefits package. So if my premise is correct…what does President Obama and those who support the “Obama Care” think will happen to the bottom line of the employee who is now liable and must have health insurance? This deal is a no win for anyone. From what I hear, the way this thing will play out the only winners will again be the insurers…now isn‘t this who the Dem’s said the Rebublicans were “in bed” with…you know, all that big business support?
Report Post »ladyingray
Posted on September 2, 2010 at 7:24pm“From what I hear, the way this thing will play out the only winners will again be the insurers”
Um, no, the insurers won’t win. Just today TNBCBS announced layoffs of over 100 people due to reduction in Medicare reimbursement. Eventually, insurers will be able to cover only what the feds say can be covered, and the reimbursement rate will be set by the feds. Basically, there will be not insurers, only the feds.
SINGLE PAY
Report Post »Beckofile
Posted on September 15, 2010 at 10:48amJust like the fact that the employer has been forced to work for the IRS and report or take the money from all workers. The employer is being forced to shift the cost to exactly where it was intended to be. They will tell us the “rich” will pay but taxes are always trickle down. Can you say corporate taxes:) They try to make us believe the consumer does not pay that cost of doing business?
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