After 21 years of benchmarking the state of employer health benefits, there should be few surprises in the latest edition of Kaiser Family Foundation's Employer Health Benefits Survey. Health insurance premiums are going up for both employers and employees (to the tune of $20,576 for family coverage); PPOs are still the most popular plan option (44 percent of enrollees), though high-deductible health plans are becoming more common; and employers are continuing to look for other ways to bring costs down.
But a deeper look at the survey paints a much more complicated picture, especially compared with the talking points popular among politicians.
"In the political debates, the private insurance system has been treated mostly as a monolith: good or bad," said KFF president and CEO Drew Altman in a call with media. "What we see in this survey is that it's really not that simple. It's a spectrum of coverage from good to lousy."
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Emily Payne
Emily Payne is director, content analytics for ALM's Business & Finance Markets and former managing editor for BenefitsPRO. A Wisconsin native, she has spent the past decade writing and editing for various athletic and fitness publications. She holds an English degree and Business certificate from the University of Wisconsin.
