Tuesday, September 15, 2009

More on the costs of doing nothing

Kaiser Family Foundation has a survey of the cost of employer provided insurance. The average premium in 1999 was $5,791 (employer portion $4247, employee $1543) while this year it is $13,375 (employer $9860, employee $3515). Wages over the same period have risen about 30%. In short, if we do nothing, most of your salary increases will go to health insurance over the next 10 years if we do nothing.....just like they have the last 10 years.

1 comment:

  1. It's unfortunate that the Obama administration has not used specific numbers like this to their advantage. All I see is Obama saying "don't be happy with the status quo...we have this many more uninsured per day...you can lose your insurance at any moment" with no actual numbers like this.

    Also this Mercer survey: http://www.mercer.com/summary.htm?idContent=1357570

    basically, 2/3 employers plan to shift more health care costs to employees in 2010, either by increasing premium contributions, deductibles, or for those not shifting more cost to the employees will plan on less wage increases.

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