Companies Crying Wolf About Healthcare Costs

For all the talk of a healthcare crisis, the numbers make it appear as though it is more myth than fact, according to a published report.

The amount that companies spend on healthcare for their employees has remained largely unchanged during the past eight years, hovering around 7.5% of total compensation for all private companies. Premium growth has remained fairly stable during that timeframe as well, according to the report, rising about 3% or 4% per year.

The data suggests that talk of a healthcare crisis in America may be mostly rhetoric and the sticker shock that goes along with seeing medical bills and the costs of a health insurance policy, according to the report.

Looking back even further, the average private company spent about 6.5% of total compensation in health insurance in 2004, which further cements the idea that there is no urgency in addressing healthcare costs in America, according to the report.

Companies have been shifting more of the healthcare burden onto employees and “workers are feeling the pain of out-of-pocket costs,” but as far as companies complaining about a healthcare crisis, there is little data to support their concerns.

From the report: “What we’ve seen in recent years in our employer survey is largely business as usual, with most employers deploying a grab bag of cost strategies, from cost shifting to disease management to wellness programs and more, without expressing great confidence in any one strategy. That approach is more consistent with the data showing the burden of health costs largely stable with moderate cost growth.”