It is hard to know whether to rejoice or lament two striking if somewhat conflicting messages last week about the costs of employer-sponsored health insurance.
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An authoritative survey found that premiums for family and individual coverage at work — including both the company's and the worker's share — have gone up only moderately for the second year in a row, suggesting that health care inflation may finally be abating and that whatever costs the president's health reforms may add will be readily absorbed.
On the other hand, United Parcel Service told its white-collar workers that in an effort to reduce its health care costs, it will no longer cover some 15,000 spouses who can obtain coverage through their own employers. The company said its move was prompted primarily by projected increases in the amount it would have to pay for employees' medical care and secondarily by various costs associated with the health care reform law.
The annual survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Health Research and Educational Trust covered more than 2,000 small and large employers. It found that the average premium for employer-sponsored health insurance, typically paid mostly by employers and partly by workers, rose only 4 percent for family plans between 2012 and 2013, the same percentage increase as between 2011 and 2012. The premiums for individual policies rose 5 percent for individual workers, up from 3 percent the previous year.
Those are well below the large premium increases seen more than a decade ago. Unfortunately, they are also well above average wage growth. And on top of premium increases, many workers must cope with rising deductibles and co-payments.
Meanwhile, U.P.S. is joining a small but growing number of companies that decline to cover working spouses who can obtain coverage at their own workplace. The costs and complications of two separate policies may vary from family to family. In some cases, the plans may have different networks of doctors and offer different benefits. U.P.S. says that eliminating a spouse from a family plan could reduce the premium paid by many of its employees by enough to cover some or all of the premium the spouse will have to pay for a separate policy at another company.
Although U.P.S. is taking other steps, such as a tobacco cessation program, to improve employee health and reduce medical spending, the spousal policy will simply shift the insurance burden from U.P.S. to the other company.
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