Mercer Weighs in on Employer Health Benefit Cost Projections

By Clive Riddle, November 16, 2012

Here’s what Mercer has to say about the rise in  health benefit costs:  “growth in the average total health benefit cost per employee slowed from 6.1% last year to just 4.1% in 2012. Cost averaged $10,558 per employee in 2012. Large employers – those with 500 or more employees – experienced both a higher increase (5.4%) and higher average cost…. Employers expect another relatively low increase of 5.0% for 2013. However, this increase reflects changes they plan to make to reduce cost; if they made no changes, cost would rise by an average of 7.4%.”

This is based on results from Mercer’s annual National Survey of Employer-Sponsored Health Plans, which includes public and private organizations with 10 or more employees; with 2,809 employers responding in 2012. The full survey results will be released in April 2013.

 How does this compare to what other major human resources/benefits consulting firms are estimating? Here's what we reported in our Tidbits column in the October 6th edition of MCOL weekend:

Aon Hewitt reports that "the average health care premium rate increase for large employers in 2012 was 4.9 percent, down from 8.5 percent in 2011 and 6.2 percent in 2010. In 2013, however, average health care premium increases are projected to jump up to 6.3 percent."  Towers Watson's survey "projects a 5.3% net increase in total health benefit plan costs after any plan changes are taken into account, increasing the average cost per active employee from $10,925 in 2012 to $11,507 in 2013. Of the 2013 total, employees will pay an average of $2,596, or 22.6%, up from $2,436 in 2012." The Segal Company  projects 8.8% increases in 2013 for open access PPOs (10.0% in 2012; 8.2% increases in 2013 for HMOs (9.6% for 2012) and 9.1% increases in 2013 for HDHPs (10.4% in 2012.)

Mercer makes particular note of the impact of CDHPs in the employer benefit arena. They state that “with a growing number of employers now positioning a high-deductible, account-based consumer-directed health plan as their primary plan – or even their only plan – employee enrollment jumped from 13% to 16% of all covered employees in 2012. Many employers see these plans as central to their response to health care reform provisions that will raise enrollment. Over the past two years, offerings of CDHPs have risen from 17% to 22% of all employers, and from 23% to 36% of employers with 500 or more employees. Well over half (59%) of very large organizations (20,000 or more employees), which typically offer employees a choice of medical plans, now offer a CDHP. With the cost of coverage in a CDHP with a health savings account is about 20% lower, on average, than the cost of PPO coverage – $7,833 per employee compared to $10,007 -- employers are increasing willing to make the CDHP their primary or even their only plan. Among large employers that offer an HSA-based CDHP, average enrollment rose from 25% to 32% in 2012. And, when asked if they expect to offer a CDHP five years from now, 18% of large employers say they expect to offer it as the only plan, up from 11% in 2011.”