Thursday, September 17, 2009
HSAs Still Best for Workers
The Kaiser Family Foundation has released its annual Employer Health Benefits Survey. Here are some highlights:
- Not much has changed since last year. Costs for family premiums have risen 5%, but single person premiums had no "statistically significant" growth.
- 20% of workers are in family plans that cost $16,000 or more (approaching the trigger for the Senate Finance proposed 35% surcharge -- see below), while 21% are in plans costing $10,700 or less.
- 60% of workers are in PPOs, 20% in HMOs. 10% in POS plans, 8% in HSAs or HRAs, and 1% in "conventional" plans. If something attracts only one percent, is it still "conventional?
- Of those workers with annual deductibles, the deductible amount for single coverage is $634 for PPOs, $699 for HMOs, $1,061 for POS, and $1,838 for HRA/HSA plans.
- The percentage of all firms offering health benefits has gone down from 63% in 2008 to 60% in 2009. The percentage of the smallest firms (under 10 workers) is 46%.
- Only 29% of large firms (over 200 workers) now offer retiree health benefits (see story below on proposed subsidies for these companies).
- HSAs are the best deal around. For family coverage the total annual premium is $10,396, as compared to $12,223 for an HRA, and $12,719 for a PPO. Of this, workers contribute $2,543 to the HSA premium, $3,067 to the HRA premium, and $3,470 to the PPO premium. Employers on average contribute $1,126 to an HSA and $2,073 to an HRA, and obviously nothing to a PPO deductible. So, the total employee exposure for premiums and deductibles is $3,255 for an HSA, $2,932 for an HRA, and $4,094 for a PPO. But it is only with the HSA that an employee may keep unspent funds when he leaves the job.
