Healthcare costs for U.S. employers are expected to grow by another 9 percent next year, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers’ Health Research Institute, following medical costs increases of 9.2 percent in 2009 and 9.9 percent in 2008. Behind the Numbers: Medical Costs Trends for 2010 reports that American workers are accelerating their use of health care in anticipation of losing their jobs and, potentially, their health insurance coverage. Forty-two percent of employers surveyed by PricewaterhouseCoopers said they would increase employees’ share of healthcare costs. Forty-one percent said they expect to increase medical cost sharing through plan design changes.
Twenty percent of employers surveyed said they would add a high-deductible health plan as an option to their benefit plan design over the next two years. And although two-thirds of employers are offering wellness and disease management programs, few said these programs are very effective at lowering costs because participation among employees remains low: around 40 percent for wellness programs and 15 percent for disease management programs.
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