Milliman, Seattle, recently completed its 2010 Group HealthInsurance Survey, which projects an average 10.2 percent premiumrate increase for January 2011 renewals for healthmaintenance organizations and an 11.7 percent increase forpreferredprovider organizations. These increases also possibly reflectsome change because of implementation requirements of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.

For premium rates, the reported annual historical growth was10.9 percent for HMOs and 11.7 percent to 12.0 percent for PPOs.The PPO results were collected for both a standard plan and ahigh-deductible plan. In 2009, commercial insurers saw a median1.1 percent pretax profit as a percent of premium.

The Milliman survey requested a response from HMOs and PPOsbased on a set of group health benefits and demographics. Thesurvey eliminates three key issues that can distort the resultsoutlined in other health cost surveys: modifications in plandesign, shifts in premium sharing between the employer andemployee, and member demographics. Thus, these trends indicate therise in medical utilization and costs experienced and anticipatedby the HMOs and PPOs.