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Employers in the education, healthcare, manufacturing and retail sectors are shifting more and more health insurance costs to their employees, according to a new study by benefits-management company Benefitfocus.
Employers in those sectors “are using a variety of tactics to drive selection of high-deductible health plans (HDHPs), with varying levels of adoption from employees,” Benefitfocus said.
In education, the study found, HDHPs are becoming the norm. The share of employers offering at least one HDHP has more than doubled since 2016, from 23% to 50%. Employers in the education sector have labored hard to make the high-deductible plans attractive – they now pay an average of 87% of the total HDHP premium and have doubled their contributions to employee health savings accounts (HSAs) since 2016. Those efforts seem to be working, Benefitfocus found – 34% of employees selected an HDHP when given the choice in 2018, compared to just 20% two years ago.
Healthcare employers, meanwhile, have raised the price of traditional coverage to encourage HDHP adoption, with the average employee contribution for a single-coverage PPO up 24% in the last two years alone. Despite the price hikes, however, only 27% of employees selected an HDHP for 2018.
The manufacturing sector has seen a boom in HDHP offerings, but that hasn’t translated into employee uptake. Eighty-eight percent of employers in the sector now offer an HDHP, up from 54% in 2016 – but the percentage of employees selecting an HDHP has actually gone down, while PPO participation grew from 36% in 2016 to 57% this year.
“Everywhere you turn, there’s a story about rising healthcare costs,” said Ray August, president and CEO of Benefitfocus. “What employers in every industry have in common is the struggle to economically provide the best plans and care for their employees.”
