Because the health plans currently on offer were devised early this year, long before the full magnitude of the financial market meltdown and global recession were evident, experts predict that benefit offerings a year from now during sign-up season could demand that employees dig even deeper into their own pockets.
“Many more big companies will be making dramatic changes in their health plans next year, as the effects of the economic crisis become clear,” said Helen Darling, the president of the National Business Group, a national association of large employers.
Heading into the current enrollment period, the number of workers and their families covered by high-deductible plans has been growing 20 to 30 percent a year, to about 12 million, said Steve Davis, managing editor of Inside Consumer-Directed Care, a trade newsletter. While not a small number, it did represent only about 7.5 percent of the 158 million people with employer-sponsored coverage.
More telling, perhaps, is the fact that of the 12 million people covered by high-deductible plans, fewer than one-quarter of them have a health savings account in which there is actually money, according to Mr. Davis. To help offset their high out-of-pocket costs, most employees who receive a savings-plan contribution from their employers burn through it that same year, rather than bank it.