How fast is the price of employer provided health insurance rising?
It rose 13.9% last year and should rise 11.2% this year. It’s rising five times the rate of growth in wages and prices. See this story by Albert B. Crenshaw in today’s Washington Post: “Health Insurance Premiums See Double-Digit Increase”. And the percentage of people getting health insurance through their employers is dropping: “The percentage of all workers who have health insurance through their employers continues to slip, with 5 million fewer jobs offering health insurance now than in 2001, Kaiser said. Although this year’s decline was slight — to 61 percent from 62 percent in 2003 — the drop from the peak of 65 percent in 2001 is “significant,” Kaiser said. The share of workers at small firms — those with three to 199 workers — getting health insurance declined to 50 percent this year from 58 percent in 2001.”The story suggests that workers only pay part of the cost of coverage under the employer provided plans (it reports that this “share” has remained fairly constant since
