Looks like healthcare costs continue to rise. Is there any help for employees and consumers who are getting stuck with larger out-of-pocket expenses?
The Star Ledger – on line
Strained by rising health care costs and the sour economy, U.S. employers are pressing workers to shoulder the added burden alone as employees pay higher insurance premiums and more out-of-pocket expenses for their medical care.
The average employer-provided family health plan now costs workers nearly $4,000 a year, up 14 percent from last year, according to a survey by the nonprofit Kaiser Family Foundation and the Health Research and Educational Trust.
That is the largest annual increase since the survey began in 1999 and a marked change from previous years, when employers generally split the cost of rising premiums with their employees.
Indeed, the average employer contribution to a family plan did not increase at all this year, meaning the entire increase was borne by workers.
Overall, premium growth slowed slightly this year to 3 percent, with the average annual cost of a family health plan reaching $13,370. Workers picked up 30 percent of that bill.
The average plan for a single individual cost $5,049.
At the same time, workers also saw average co-payments for routine office visits rise 10 percent and deductibles continue their surge upward.
In 2010, more than a quarter of American workers with employer-provided health coverage are in plans with deductibles of $1,000 or higher.
“It’s really bad news for everybody,” said Helen Darling, president of the National Business Group on Health, an organization of large employers that provide coverage to about 50 million workers, retirees and dependents.
The squeeze, reported by employers between January and May, largely reflects the fallout of the ongoing economic slowdown and may be ameliorated in future years as the new health care law is implemented.
But it could also further complicate the Obama administration’s efforts to rally support for the law, which is expected to do relatively little in the short term to contain rising medical bills.
“There have been times when employers been able to absorb costs. This is not one of those times,” said James Gelfand, health policy director at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, a leading critic of the new law.
