Going Up

By Dian Vujovich

Whatever your feelings are for or against health care reform, new numbers show the costs of health care insurance is expected to increase more for employees than it does their employers next year. Don’t you just love how that works?

Anyway, according to analysis by Hewitt Associates, in 2009 the average health care premiums increased by 6 percent over those in 2008. And in 2010, they’re expected to jump by that same percentage. That means that the average total health care premium the man pays for each employee at larger companies is expected to go from $8,607 this year to $9,120 next year.

Employees, on the other hand, will be expected to pay 10 percent more for their share of the coverage or about $2,085.

Their out-of-pocket co pay costs are to increase by 10 percent as well.

That’s a double-ouch for anyone who hasn’t received at least a 10 percent increase in overall pay lately.

And now for some real ugly news from this Plansponsor.com piece (http://tinyurl.com/yewclgx): “These projections mean that in nine years, total health care premiums will have more than doubled from $4,159 in 2001 to $9,120 in 2010. Employees’ share of those costs – including employee contributions and out-of-pocket costs – will have more than tripled from $1,262 in 2001 to $4,023 in 2010…”

Not much more one can say here except that Hewitt’s data comes from a database of over 1,700 health plans, 25 major employers and represents over 13 million health plan participants around the country.