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SALT LAKE CITY — The average monthly premium for single coverage health care plans has increased 16% since 2016, according to Utah's Employers Council.
The findings of the survey released last week come as part of the organization’s 2019 Utah Health & Welfare Plans Survey, which is “designed to help Utah employers determine how their benefit offerings compare to the marketplace,” the news release says.
The study also says that employers pay an average of 80% of health coverage, unchanged from last year; that the average employer contribution to an employee’s HSA account when enrolled in a single high deductible plan is $633 per year, up $18 from last year; that 95% of employers offer incentives through a wellness program; and that 79% of Utah employers offer a Preferred Provider Organization health plan and 83% offer a High Deductible Health Plan.
Courtney Bullard, the education and collaborations director at the Utah Health Policy Project, said a 16% increase in three years is significant. But she said premiums have been steadily increasing for years, creating “kind of a public health crisis.”
She said premium increases have forced consumers into difficult and harmful decisions, like the 30% of consumers she said have been deterred from taking prescribed medication due to costs.
Bullard said there’s likely no one single culprit for the continually increasing prices. “It’s important to stop pointing fingers in the health care industry at this point,” Bullard said. “Every criticism of health care cost probably has some validity in it, because the system is so complicated.”
The Wall Street Journal reported last week that the average total cost of employer-provided health coverage passed $20,000 for a family plan this year, a 5% year-over-year increase, according to a survey by the nonprofit Kaiser Family Foundation.
The article also says that employees’ costs rose even faster, growing 8% to an average of $6,015 paid toward premiums for family plans.
