Fewer Firms Are Providing Health Care, Survey Finds
Posted on: Saturday, 17 September 2005, 00:00 CDT
Sep. 15--WASHINGTON -- Fewer companies provided health care benefits to employees again this year as the nation's employer-based health insurance system continued to erode.
The percentage of companies offering insurance dropped to 60 percent in 2005, down from 69 percent five years ago. Almost all the erosion was among small companies.
What's more, workers still covered by employer health programs saw their premiums continue to increase more than three times as fast as their wages.
The findings were reported Wednesday by the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Health Research & Educational Trust. The annual survey included 2,013 companies.
"We have seen a slow but perceptible and steady fraying of the employer-based health care system, particularly with small employers," said Drew Altman, president and chief executive of Kaiser.
Dr. Altman estimated that 266,000 fewer firms are offering health insurance than in 2000.
The one silver lining in the report may be that the 9.2 percent increase in health insurance premiums for 2005 broke a four-year trend of double-digit cost increases. Health premiums went up 11.2 percent in 2004 and 13.9 percent in 2003.
But that increase was still much faster than the overall 3.5 percent inflation rate and outpaced the 2.7 percent increase in workers' wages.
Analysts said the slowdown in premium rate hikes is probably only temporary. They said the rising cost of health care and the added expense of caring for an aging population are likely to push premiums higher in the future.
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Source: The Dallas Morning News
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