It appears as though employees will bear most of the brunt of health reform’s impact on coverage costs in 2011.
Should the reform law cause costs to increase (as recent studies like this one have predicted), 64% of employers said they are either “highly likely” or “likely” to pass those increases on to their employees, found a recent Society for Human Resource Management study conducted June 16-23, 2010.
Only 12% said they weren’t likely to pass along any added costs to their workers.
Conversely, should coverage costs fall, 40% of employers would pass the savings on to their workers, while an equal number of employers said they probably wouldn’t. The remaining 20% said they were unsure what they’d do.
Some other findings:
- Due to healthcare reform, 34% of organizations are considering alternative healthcare plans for their employees.
- 46% of employers have decided not to drop health coverage for employees (34% made this decision without conducting an analysis of the law).
- The primary reasons employers decided not to drop health coverage were (1) it would lower employee morale, (2) it would make it harder to recruit employees and (3) it would give the message that employees’ health is not valued.
- 37% are still conducting or plan to conduct an analysis on the impact of the new reform law.
