Employee health insurance rates

Despite efforts from employers and other private parties, employee health insurance rates continue to sky rocket, leaving many people and families without any type of medical coverage at all. In 2007, employer health insurance premiums increased by 6.1 percent. The annual premium for an employer health plan covering a single family of four averaged near $12,100. The annual premium for single coverage was around $4400. It is evident that our health care system is flawed with excessive administrative expenses, inflated prices, and poor management. It is because of these things and many others that employee health insurance rates continue to increase.

Facts on rising insurance costs for employers and their employees


• Most, if not all of the annual premiums for employer based health insurance rose in 2007 6.1 percent. Smaller firms with fewer employees (less than 24) increased by 6.8 percent.


•  Employees on employer based health insurance plans are paying around $1400 more in annual premiums for family coverage than they paid eight years ago.


•  Premiums have continually increased since the year 2000 while inflation and the cumulative wage growth have only grown about 23 percent.

• According to the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Health Research, premiums for employer based health insurance have risen almost four times faster than employee earnings.
•  If something is not done quickly health insurance costs will soon overtake profits.
•  The percentage of Americans today under the age of 65 who's out of pocket expenses exceeds $2000 a year rose from 37 percent to 43 percent. That is a significant enough increase to cause concern among employers, employees, and others concerned with health insurance rates.
•  Employees are contributing to employer based health insurance plans 143 percent more than they were eight years ago, as well as having to pay about 115 percent more in deductibles, co-payments, and medication expenses.

How do rising health insurance rates impact us? Although choosing healthcare with an employer seems to be one of the cheapest ways to go, employees are tired of paying more and more every year. Some have decided to not have any type of coverage which can actually cost an employer more time and money, while others have chosen other alternatives to health insurance. Either way, rising health insurance costs are impacting our society. Here's what the rising costs are doing: 

• Many people are choosing not to have health insurance due to the rising costs of health insurance coverage.
•  Almost half the people surveyed in the Wall Street Journal-NBC have said that the cost of health insurance is their number one economic concern.
•  One in four American say that their family has had problems paying for medical care during the past year, and almost 30 percent said that they delayed medical care due to high costs in healthcare or not having health insurance at all.
•  A recent survey has shown that more than 25 percent have said that house problems have resulted from medical debt.
•  Retiring elderly couples will need about $200,000 in savings just to pay for basic medical coverage; this is a low estimate and some think that it will be much more than this amount.

If something isn't done about employee health insurance rates there will be more people without health care coverage and the country will find itself in even more debt than it already is. Rising health insurance rates are everyone's problem and hopefully a solution will be found.

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