Health Insurance

[epitome1170]

Originally Posted by HemiEd

Health insurance costs have become prohibitive for the employers, and continue to get worse.

We (company less than 100 employees) received 35-45% increases annually, until we finally said no a few months ago.

We continued to raise the co-pay and increase the deductibles, until it just made no more sense, trying to keep the costs down.

Just for me and my spouse, it was costing $43,000 per year, with $6000 deductible, $50 copay in network etc.

The system is broke, unless you don't need it.

This!

My company switched to a HSA plan instead in order to minimize the increase in premiums, but even then it still increased 15% or so... it happens yearly.

Insurance premiums are a rather large expense for a company (assuming they pay it for the employees or a portion of it) and they are only getting bigger.

It is not a popular thought, but a company still does have to look out for their long term financial responsibilities and sometimes this means that the employees have to take a decrease in their benefits. It could be worse... they could just stop supply a health care plan altogether... I am seeing more companies go that route in this economy as well.