Survey findings released by Towers Watson and Washington-basedNational Business Group on Health reveal that employers arebecoming more aggressive in shifting healthcare-benefits costs toemployees.

The survey notes that incremental changes employers made in thepast to pass costs to employees were just a drop in the bucketcompared to what will likely happen in the future.

The reason for more aggressive transfer of costs is becausetotal anticipated annual costs-per-active employee are expected toreach $11,176 in 2011. This figure is a 7.6 percent increase over2010, the study noted.

Testifying on March 10 before the U.S. House Committee onEducation and the Workforce, J. Michael Brewer, the KansasCity-based president of the Lockton Benefit Group, said companiesthat were already seeing a 10 percent annual increase in healthcarecosts could expect to see an additional 2.5 percent tacked on as aresult of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) signed into law last yearby President Obama.

In cases where plans are terminated and employees in 2014 movefrom group-health plans to individual coverage on insuranceexchanges called for by the reform, those employees can plan onpaying more than double — anywhere from 101 percent to 155 percent— for coverage, according to the Lockton testimony.

Brewer’s testimony chided Congress for adding more cost andlabor to a system that already has enough of both.

"Our clients tell us they have no quarrel with the notion thatimprovements in the health insurance system are necessary toimprove access to insurance and reduce the cost of healthcare andconcomitantly, the cost of health insurance," Brewer told thecommittee. "However, they are frustrated that in the effort toachieve those aims the health reform law adds additional expense totheir health insurance costs and imposes additional administrativeburdens on them."

One place employers will be cutting costs if they haven'talready is in the area of dependent coverage. According to theTowers Watson survey, about two-thirds (68 percent) of employersare moving to increase contributions for dependents, and aboutone-quarter (26 percent) of employers plan to cease sponsorship ofretiree-medical coverage.

Mark Olson, a Towers Watson senior consulting actuary, saidemployers are eying the creation of the exchanges as places totransition out of the burden of providing coverage, withpost-retirement coverage one of the focal points for thetransition.

"A lot of the employers that we work with are looking at thepopulation and seeing who is more likely to go to the exchanges andget coverage," Olson said an HRExecutive Online article.

Olson also said there are employers that are ahead of the packin their willingness to engage employees in wellness programs, holdthem accountable for their health and be more consistent incommunicating their expectations for better employee health.

"There are some employers that we have been tracking for anumber of years that we call consistent performers, and there arecertain interventions that they have done that have allowed them toexperience lower rates of increase than other employers," Olsonsaid.