Here’s How Much More Your Health Insurance Will Cost Next Year
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Here’s How Much More Your Health Insurance Will Cost Next Year

Library of Congress/Puck

Consumers who get health insurance through their jobs won’t see rate hikes in the double digits like those on the Obamacare exchanges, but they’ll still see the cost of health care go up.

Large employers estimate that the employee share of health insurance costs next year will be $4,400, up from $4,200 this year, according to a new report from the National Business Group on Health. On average, employers will continue to cover about 70 percent of the total costs, which they project will increase by 5 percent to $14,156.

Related: Where Does Obamacare Go From Here? 3 Scenarios for Health Care Reform

As the price of insurance continues to go up, more companies are looking into different kinds of plans. If your company doesn’t offer a high-deductible health insurance plan, it probably will soon.

The plans, which shift some costs from the company to the worker and encourage consumers to shop around for health care, are becoming far more common. In 2018, nine in 10 large employers will offer at least one high-deductible health plan, up from 84 percent last year, according to NBGH.

Nearly 40 percent in 10 companies have made high-deductible health plans the only plans available to workers, up from 35 percent last year. NBGH predicts that by 2020 nearly all large employers (97 percent) will make a high-deductible health plan an option.

While most employers (80 percent) also provide a health spending account option that encourages employees to build up pre-tax savings for health expenses to help offset the out-of-pocket costs associated with a high deductible, the percentage that offer an HSA is declining.

The survey found some other trends in large employer health plans, including a shift toward telemedicine and onsite health centers for treatment of minor medical issues.

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