Family Healthcare Costs Rise, But Workers Pay For The Increase

Family health premiums rose 3% to $13,770. this year. The number seems modest but it is not for those who are insured. According to new data from the Kaiser Family Foundation 2010 Employer Health Benefits Survey, the share paid by workers rose 14%. The amount that their employers paid did not go up at all.

Now in its 12th year, the survey is a joint project of the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Health Research & Educational Trust.  It was conducted between January and May of 2010 and included 3,143 randomly selected, non-federal public and private firms with three or more employees (2,046 of which responded to the full survey and 1,097 of which responded to a single question about offering coverage).

“Many employers are also raising the annual deductibles workers must pay before their health plans begin to share most health care costs.  A total of 27 percent of covered workers now face annual deductibles of at least $1,000, up from 22 percent in 2009,” the survey finds. “With the economy struggling, businesses have been shifting more of the costs of health insurance to workers through premiums, deductibles and other cost-sharing,” Kaiser President and CEO Drew Altman, Ph.D., said .

Is this healthcare reform? Almost certainly not. It does show how companies may get around paying some of the costs of the new federal program which will offer nearly universal medical care. Like most large, expensive federal mandates, the private sector finds a way around them.

The Kaiser study demonstrates why many citizens are confused by the new Obama reform. To many, it is to offer a free ride — insurance for all with no rejections for pre-existing conditions.  In increases the availability of help for the indigent and the poor. And, somehow, over the course of a decade, the nearly $1 trillion set of reforms will pay for themselves.

There appears to be some evidence that the cost of reform to enterprises may be lessened substantially due to factors that shift the cost of healthcare from employers to workers. American business have had a decades-long habit of moving whatever costs they can to employees. Most companies even have paid soft drink machines. Why should a firm pay for something that its workers do not “deserve?”

Healthcare reform may become nearly universal in American over the next few years, but that privilege is hardly free. And, if the economy remains rocky, the temptation to US businesses to avoid increased healthcare cost will only become more powerful

Douglas A. McIntyre