Millions of Americans rely on employer-based health insurance coverage, but this is at risk with rising health care costs.  In addition to this upset, rising health care costs would eventually cause health insurance quotes to increase across the board making individual health insurance more expensive for those seeking it outside of their employer.  It’s a no win situation, but health care reform hopes to keep some of these problems to a minimum.

The article “Survey: Big Firms Expect More Health Care Hikes” by The Associated Press on Businessweek.com discusses some results of a survey completed by the nonprofit group, the National Business Group on Health.  The survey polled big companies about health care costs and about 53% of them plan on increasing the percentage that their employees put towards premiums to offset the rising costs of health insurance rates.  Most employers are raising this percentage less than 10%.

On average, employers will pay around 70% of the total health insurance premium based on another report released by the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Health Research and Educational Trust.  This may slowly change as costs rise and put more pressure on employers to reduce their costs.  Employers are expecting health care costs to rise about 7.2% in 2012 but hopefully employees will not feel this spike as employers rearrange benefit packages to make them more affordable.  It’s possible they see a reduction in benefits combines with a smaller rate increase.  As employees start receiving their benefit choices for 2012, they will be faced with some decisions whether it’s in their best interest to keep insurance through their employer or start shopping around for better deals through individual health insurance quotes.

Written by Sam Tabes

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