Dive Brief:
- Employees with a company-sponsored plan will spend 55% more on their health premiums and out-of-pocket costs in 2015 than they did in 2010, according to a new report from human resources company Aon Hewitt.
- The average person with an employer-sponsored plan will pay a premium of about $2,664, or almost 24% of the total cost of their plan, next year. For comparison's sake, that number was $1,835, or 22%, in 2010.
- As for out-of-pocket costs, employees will pay an average of $2,487 next year—almost double what they paid in 2009 ($1,276).
Dive Insight:
Rising premium and out-of-pocket costs among employer-sponsored plans should come as no surprise—employers have made no secret of the fact that they will try to curb costs while on-boarding ACA regulations. In an annual employer benefits survey from Mercer, 68% said they plan to make changes to their health plan to help cut costs in 2015, compared with 55% two years ago. Moreover, almost 75% of companies with over 1,000 workers offer high-deductible plans, according to the 2014 Towers Watson/National Business Group on Health employer healthcare survey. 9% plan on adding them in 2015.
Aon Hewitt's study uses data from 561 large US companies employing 13 million insured individuals.