What’s Driving Health Care increases for America's Companies?

This analysis points to several factors. First, employers continue to experience an increase in the quantity and cost of catastrophic claims, as slower levels of hiring have resulted in slightly older workforces who are more prone to costly medical conditions.

Also, generally poorer health – leading to increases in costly conditions such as diabetes and heart disease – make it difficult for employers to deploy tactics that drive short-term cost savings.


As a result, employers continue to ask employees to absorb increases through a combination of out-of-pocket cost and increased payroll contributions.

Furthermore, against this backdrop, employers are focused on ways to mitigate these “unhealthy” trends over both short- and long-term, while awaiting further regulations related to health care reform. “In addition to sharing costs with employees, organizations are implementing more aggressive ‘incentive’ strategies to get [workers] to understand, and manage, their health,” noted Jim Winkler, large market segment leader with the health & benefits practice at Aon Hewitt.

“Some employers are adopting the mindset that says, ‘if you are going to spend a lot of house money, you need to play by house rules,’ including completing a health-risk questionnaire, participating in prevention and wellness plans, and better managing chronic conditions,” he added.

At the end of the day, however, companies and workers alike are facing big dollar hikes in terms of health care costs – and that sure doesn’t help the bottom line of any industry, much less those involved in the trucking business “In what continues to be an uncertain economic environment, organizations cannot afford health care costs growing at 7% each year,” noted John Zern, executive vice president and practice director for health & benefits-the Americas, for Aon Hewitt.

“While health care reform continues to represent potential systemic change in a few years, employers will continue to shift cost to employees in order to keep company costs to a manageable level,” he added.