A report by the PwC Health Research Institute (HRI) predicts employer health costs will rise 6% next year. This is slightly faster than health care costs have risen the past two years, in spite of businesses’ continued efforts to control them by passing costs on to workers and shifting to high-deductible plans.
The strategy has not only made employees unhappy, it has also rendered many individuals and families with employer-provided high-deductible plans unable to pay their deductibles, according to HRI.
HRI’s study discovered more “employer activists” taking matters into their own hands, negotiating contract prices, setting up their own provider networks and, in some cases, building parallel health systems to take care of their own employees. More actions like this may be on the horizon.