Get Ready to Pay Higher Health Care Costs at the Workplace

Companies are bracing for an influx of participants in their insurance plans due to the health-care overhaul, adding to pressure to shift more of the cost of coverage to employees. 

Many employers are betting that the Affordable Care Act's requirement that all Americans have health insurance starting in 2014 will bring more people into their plans who have previously opted out. That, along with other rising expenses, is prompting companies to raise workers' premium contributions, steer them toward high-deductible plans and charge them more to cover family members.

The changes as companies roll out their health plans for 2014 aren't solely the result of the ACA. Employers have been pushing more of the cost of providing health insurance on to their workers for years, and firms that aren't booking much sales growth due to the sluggish economy are under heavy pressure to keep expenses down. 

Some are dealing with rising expenses by making employees pick up a bigger share of the premiums for coverage of family members. Employees this year are responsible for an average 18% of the cost of individual coverage, but 29% of the cost of family coverage, according to a survey of employee health plans by the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Health Research & Educational Trust.

"We have seen employers do more cost-shifting, if you will, for an employee to pay a higher portion of the cost of dependent and spouse coverage," said Tracy Watts, U.S. health-care reform leader at Mercer, a benefits consulting unit of Marsh & McLennan Cos. 

Between 15% and 20% of eligible workers nationwide tend to skip insurance, benefits consultants say.

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