Large employers are winning the battle to effectively manage their health care costs. While that line item in the budget continues to increase each year, those increases are now closer to the annual escalation rates of other costs, such as salaries.

That's the key finding of an annual survey of large employers by the National Business Group on Health, a business advocacy organization that focuses exclusively on national health policies and issues that affect large corporations. The survey included input from 140 members of the NBGH.

The survey found that, on average, large employers would have expected a 6 percent increase next year in employee health-related spending. But, as in the previous two years, most employers will redesign their health plans to bring that increase closer to 5 percent — the average increase they reported in 2014 and 2015.