Health Insurance Rates Are Still Rising
They rose 7 percent his year, and the increases are expected to continue next year. How much can employers pass along to employees?
Good Morning!
Here are today’s highlights:
A contract manufacturer says late payments are an indicator of slowing business.
Is Zara’s website unusable—or the key to the company’s success?
Gene Marks says that being ADA-compliant is just good business.
The Wall Street Journal says it’s okay to wear pajamas to the office.
HEALTH INSURANCE
Inflation is easing in most sectors—but not when it comes to health insurance: “The cost of employer health insurance rose 7 percent for a second straight year, maintaining a growth rate not seen in more than a decade, according to an annual survey by the healthcare nonprofit KFF. The back-to-back years of rapid increases have added more than $3,000 to the average family premium, which reached roughly $25,500 this year. Businesses absorbed this year’s higher premium costs—one of several signals in recent years that employers are sensitive to the limits of what workers can afford, said Matthew Rae, associate director of the KFF healthcare marketplace program and an author of the survey.”
“Employers spent about $1,880 more this year, bringing their average cost for family premiums to $19,276. Workers’ share of the average family premium dropped by roughly $280 from last year, to $6,296.”
“Businesses can’t keep that up, said Shawn Gremminger, chief executive of the National Alliance of Healthcare Purchaser Coalitions, an employer group. And workers ultimately bear those higher costs in other ways, he said, including smaller raises or job cuts. ‘That’s adding real stress to the economy,’ he said.”
“Stress on the sector is expected to continue, at least for another year. Employers and benefit consultants said health-insurance costs are projected to rise rapidly again in 2025. Healthcare costs don’t change as swiftly as in other sectors of the economy, where inflation has cooled. Prices for health services are typically locked in under multi-year contracts.”
“Increases in deductibles—the amounts employees must pay out of pocket before health insurance kicks in—was steep for years but eased more recently because the expense might already have been more than workers could afford, Rae said. This year, however, the average deductible for large companies inched higher by 4 percent for workers with single coverage. Workers in smaller companies were hit harder, with deductibles rising 6 percent.” READ MORE
