Employers Shift Larger Share Of Medical Costs To Workers, As Annual Premiums For Covering A Family Hit Nearly $20,000

The Associated Press: Survey: Companies Continue To Pass Health Costs To Workers
If your employer is sticking you with a bigger share of the medical bill before health insurance kicks in, you may have to get used to it. More companies are making workers pay an annual deductible or increasing the amount they must spend before insurance starts covering most care, according to a survey released Wednesday by the Kaiser Family Foundation. Annual deductibles for single coverage have now climbed about eight times as fast as wages over the last decade. (Murphy, 10/3)

The Wall Street Journal: Employer-Provided Health Insurance Approaches $20,000 A Year
The average cost of employer health coverage offered to workers rose to nearly $20,000 for a family plan this year, according to a new survey, capping years of increases that experts said are chiefly tied to rising prices paid for health services. Annual premiums rose 5% to $19,616 for an employer-provided family plan in 2018, according to the yearly poll of employers by the nonprofit Kaiser Family Foundation. Employers, seeking to blunt the cost of premiums, also continued to boost the deductibles that workers must pay out of their pockets before insurance kicks in. (Wilde Mathews, 10/3)

Modern Healthcare: Workers Shoulder A Growing Share Of Healthcare Costs 
The ongoing stability of the employer market where 152 million people get their coverage is welcome news for companies, considering the volatility and high premiums that have characterized the individual insurance market where roughly 20 million people buy coverage. But there's a trade-off: Employers have continued to shift a larger share of the cost of coverage to their workers by requiring them to pay more for healthcare out of pocket. Not only has the number of workers who face an annual deductible grown, but the average deductible has creeped higher and higher for more than a decade. (Livingston, 10/3)

The Hill: Premiums See Moderate Increase In 2018 For Employer Plans 
Overall, the burden of deductibles for covered workers has tripled since 2008, growing eight times faster than wages, according to the survey. “Health costs don’t rise in a vacuum. As long as out-of-pocket costs for deductibles, drugs, surprise bills and more continue to outpace wage growth, people will be frustrated by their medical bills and see health costs as huge pocketbook and political issues,” KFF President and CEO Drew Altman said. (Hellmann, 10/3)

The Star Tribune: Cost Of Family Health Coverage Nears $20,000 In U.S.
The new report doesn't feature state-specific results, but the national trends have been playing out in Minnesota, said Elizabeth Lukanen, a health policy researcher at the University of Minnesota. Historically, Minnesota has had a relatively high share of workers enrolled in high-deductible health plans, Lukanen said. "The deductibles are going up faster than premiums," said Lukanen, who studies the issue at the U's State Health Access Data Assistance Center. "We have long told a very similar national story, that the low premium increases over time have been offset by these much larger increases in deductibles." (Snowbeck, 10/3)

Kaiser Health News: High-Deductible Health Plans Fall From Grace In Employer-Based Coverage 
Few if any employers will return to the much more generous coverage of a decade or more ago, benefits experts said. But they’re reassessing how much pain workers can take and whether high-deductible plans control costs as advertised. “It got to the point where employers were worried about the affordability of health care for their employees, especially their lower-paid people,” said Beth Umland, director of research for health and benefits at Mercer, a benefits consultancy that also conducted a survey. (Hancock, 10/3)

Georgia Health News: Premiums In Employer Plans Still Edging Up, National Survey Finds 
The survey found that 57 percent of employers offer health benefits, similar to the share last year (53%) and five years ago (57%). Employers that do not offer health benefits to any workers tend to be small companies. (Miller, 10/3)

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Workers Paying A Steadily Increasing Share Of Health Benefits
The survey is in line with a recent survey by M3, a benefits consultant and insurance broker based in Madison, of its clients in Wisconsin. That survey found that health care costs increased 6.1 percent on average this year, the lowest increase since 2014. The trend has been for increases of 5 to 7 percent for roughly a decade, said Brian Meyer, director of risk management for M3. (Boulton, 10/3)