News
October is open enrollment season for many large employers. Smaller employers tend to have health plan enrollments based on their anniversary dates.
If you have a health plan, you work for one of the 60 percent of businesses which are offering that benefit this year, the report says, and it is likely your employer is a larger one.
This study says that only 46 percent of the smallest employers, which are defined as those with three to nine workers, do offer benefits.
“Premiums for employer-sponsored health insurance rose to $13,375 annually for family coverage this year—with employees on average paying $3,515 and employers paying $9,860, according to the benchmark 2009 Employer Health Benefits Survey released today by the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Health Research & Educational Trust (HRET).
“Family premiums rose about 5 percent this year, which is much more than general inflation (which fell 0.7 percent during the same period, mostly due to falling energy prices). Workers wages went up 3.1 percent during the same period. Since 1999, premiums have gone up a total of 131 percent, far more rapidly than workers’ wages (up 38 percent since 1999) or inflation (up 28 percent since 1999). For the past few years, the annual rise in premiums has been more moderate than the double-digit growth experienced earlier this decade.
“As Congress considers health reforms building on the existing employment-based system, the annual Kaiser/HRET survey provides a detailed picture of private health insurance coverage and costs. Selected findings will also be published today (9/15/09) as a Web Exclusive in the journal Health Affairs.
“The survey found that 60 percent of firms offer health benefits to any of their workers this year. As in the past, the smaller the firm, the less likely it is to offer health benefits—with fewer than half (46 percent) of the smallest employers (three to nine workers) offering health benefits.
“Among those firms offering benefits, 21 percent report they reduced the scope of health benefits or increased cost sharing due to the economic downturn, and 15 percent report they increased the worker’s share of the premium.”
Source: Kaiser Family Foundation, 2009 Employer Health Benefits Survey, September 15, 2009
Source: Health Affairs Online, September 15, 2009
