subject: Large Employer Health Insurance Plans May Cost More Next Year [print this page] Although 2011 is still nearly five months away, corporations are planning for the new year long before the ball drops on Times Square.
Employee benefits are playing a key role in their calculations. That is mostly due to the national healthcare reform law passed in March. Several of its provisions go into effect next month, which must then be implemented in their company's health insurance plans the following plan year.
What are large employers predicting? A recently study from the National Business Group on Health found that they expect to confront increased medical costs. One percent--about half of the increase--is attributed to healthcare reform. Some financial experts believe that the increase may be absorbed into total compensation packages, resulting in slightly lower gross salaries. However, a significant portion of large companies plan to have their employees pay a higher percentage of premiums, deductibles, and/or out-of-pocket expenditures.
One of the factors driving up health insurance plan costs is the requirement that employees' adult children be allowed to sign up for or remain on their parent's health insurance plan as a dependent. Formerly, most companies cut them off when they were no longer in college, or if they did not attend. Now, they must allow those dependents to stay on until the age of 26, if they are not working for a company that offers health coverage. In precarious economic times that have left millions of twenty-somethings unable to find full-time work with benefits, those costs will add up.
In addition, the mandated removal of caps on annual or lifetime dollar limits for health care is also significant. Over one quarter of the large employers surveyed plan to eliminate the former, while 70 percent are removing overall yearly limits. For the same reason, many employers are also lifting dollar limits that apply specifically towards mental health or substance abuse treatment.
Large Employer Health Insurance Plans May Cost More Next Year
By: Yamileth Medina
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