Posted on 10/15/2024 9:03:49 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Health-benefit costs are expected to exceed salary increases despite the Biden-Harris administration claiming to have helped redress the issue, a study from advisory firm Mercer found.
Employer-provided health insurance expenses rose 7% in 2024 and are expected to rise 5.8% in 2025, with over half of the 1,800 employers surveyed telling Mercer they plan to cut insurance plan costs in the new year, often through increasing out-of-pocket costs for employees. The increase in healthcare expenses is expected to outpace salary growth, with performance-based raises and total salary budgets predicted to rise just 3.3% and 3.6% next year, respectively.
Prescription drug spending is the fastest-growing component of the surge in health-benefit costs, rising 7.2% in 2024 and expected to continue increasing in 2025 due to new high-cost gene and cellular therapies, according to Mercer. Rising healthcare costs are also largely driven by a growing disparity between the supply of healthcare workers and a rising demand for medical services as older Americans become an increasingly large segment of the population.
Health Insurance is Killing Us
Benefit consultants said health-insurance costs are projected to rise rapidly again in 2025
Average deductible for single coverage grew faster than workers’ wages
New Hospital contracts have bigger price increases to offset workers raises
~WSJ pic.twitter.com/V6wt7y8ajn— Lawyerforlaws (@lawyer4laws) October 9, 2024
The Biden-Harris administration claimed it would address rising healthcare costs, vowing in March to reduce premiums by an average of $800 a year for millions of Americans by expanding Affordable Care Act tax credits. The White House also capped prescription drug costs at $2,000 per year for Medicare beneficiaries starting in 2025 — a move that experts told the Daily Caller News Foundation would have caused a spike in Medicare premiums if not for the administration providing billions in subsidies for insurers in a ploy to buy votes.
“The $2,000 dollar cap [on Medicare out-of-pocket prescription drug costs] as well as other Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) provisions were slated to triple the cost of Part D,” Michael Cannon, director of health policy studies at the Cato Institute, previously told the DCNF. “If millions of senior citizens see their premiums triple, they’d go to the polls and vote out those responsible… The White House isn’t lowering premiums by lowering costs, they are doing it by passing the cost on to taxpayers rather than enrollees.”
If the increase in health benefit costs meets Mercer’s 5.8% prediction, it would mark the third consecutive year the increase exceeded 5% after nearly a decade of health benefit cost increases averaging just 3%, the firm reported.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The percentage of increase, in article, are inaccurate. Off by a substantial amount.
You wouldn’t believe the amount of money some of the administrative people in these health care networks make. It’s criminal.
Employer-provided health insurance expenses rose 7% in 2024 and are expected to rise 5.8% in 2025...
The Dims are not the party of workers. They're the party of chronic work-avoiders.
Let it surge for the year. Just vote early in the year to eliminate Obamacare entirely by the ed of the year. One year to come up with a new plan market-based. Put nurses in charge. Promise it will cover everybody.
And who do we thank for this? KenyanKare brought to you by Obama Hussein and maintained all these years by the GOPe/uniparty. We are already at socialism and inching our way to commiedom. Ask Harris, representing the masses just like the commies want.
Trump(should he win) will have a legacy to build. That means running roughshod over his opponents on the big stuff. Health care is one.
My small business health-care costs have “surged” every.single.year. since Obamacare
We are now $25K out of pocket in monthly charges and deductibles before 1 penny of cost covered.
I feel like self-insuring, and negotiating rates with doctors myself - but then I already have another job, and a life to lead....
Any industry where the number of administrators exceeds the number of employees actively involved in producing the product, delivering a service, or engaged directly with customers, is inefficient and usually ineffective. Unless propped up by the government it is vulnerable to disruption and death from new nimble competitors.
The medical care industry in the United States is a prime example of a dead man still walking thanks to its dependence on government spending plus the heavy hand of government regulators to stamp out potential disruptive competitors.
Let’s hear it for socialized medicine!
It’s all part of the bubble. When a company, like insurance, is brought in to cut costs by using guarentee money from buyers and deals with physicians to cut costs on short term, it works. Of course putting up with certian rules that can be a hurdle come up, but overall it can be profitable if managed right and the right numbers are within the level of control of the agencies.
But that disappeares when outside sources change. If the economy falters the costs to the agencies raise and are passed down to the consumers. So they have to raise their prices to keep their machine operating. And the ultimate end is when the agency can no longer maintain their machine with a competitive amount consistent with the needs of the consumer’s budget. So either the machine folds or the consumers can no longer pay the cost and bail. It’s just the business side of the game.
So they can’t blame the cost goping up on the machine. They had to in self defence so they could eat. And the average inflation rate over the past 4 years has consistently risen:
In 2023, the average rate of inflation was 4.1%.
In 2022, the average rate of inflation was 8.0%.
In 2021, the average rate of inflation was 4.7%.
In 2020, the average rate of inflation was 1.2%.*
* This amount was in the first year of the Biden/Harris administration still living off the Trump work and their policies didn’t go into effect totally until 2021. They went into full effect in 2022 and skyrocketed. So an average inflation rate for the first two full years of liberal administration averaged 6.35% increase over that two years. The average during the Trump admin was 1.9% annually even with the virus actions costs and over 4 years.
https://www.investopedia.com/us-inflation-rate-by-president-8546447#toc-donald-trump-20172021
So don’t blame the insurance companies. Blame the source of the problem...liberal government.
wy69
Soon, people will start to realize they don’t need ninety percent of what is offered by modern medicine. Diet, exercise, and sunshine will keep you pretty healthy.
I believe that at least some of this increase can be blamed on the number of unnecessary tests and screenings insurance companies themselves encourage people to get.
HOW many employers are just raising pay & letting employees buy their own insurance???
Most the jobs I had between 1957 & 1980 did NOT have health insurance benefits.
Then, in 1980, I went self- employed & paid my own insurance until 1994 when I turned 55 & the premium more than doubled. I DROPPED ALL health insurance. HAD no claims of any kind after surgery in summer of 1975.
HOW many employers are just raising pay & letting employees buy their own insurance???
Most the jobs I had between 1957 & 1980 did NOT have health insurance benefits.
Then, in 1980, I went self- employed & paid my own insurance until 1994 when I turned 55 & the premium more than doubled. I DROPPED ALL health insurance. HAD no claims of any kind after surgery in summer of 1975.
Sorry for double post
It’s a tax. Hospitals are required to take illegal aliens. They pass the cost onto their paying customers.
I’m sure millions of illegals getting free health care does not help the situation any
Hospitals are going to catch one hell of a surge from all the illegal aliens and their elderly Mamas and Papas. Somebody, more than likely the U.S Taxpayers, are really going to take it in the shorts to pay for that brand new invasion of 20 million Illegal Alien “residents” imported by Bidenskyyyyyyyy and Harris.
Health care costs are increasing because the costs for illegal immigrants OF WHICH THERE ARE NOW MILLIONS is getting pushed onto everybody’s insurance costs.
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