Comp Health Insurance Benefit

Employer health insurance rises 9%

STOCKTON - Annual premiums for employer-sponsored family health insurance have increased 9 percent in 2011 to an average $15,073, with workers paying $4,129 and employers picking up $10,944 of the annual cost, according to a comprehensive national survey released Tuesday.

Eight years ago, health insurance premiums for employer-sponsored family coverage rose 13 percent over the previous year. Since then, the average annual premium increase steadily dropped until it rose just 3 percent last year, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation/Health Research & Educational Trust 2011 Employer Health Benefits Survey.

"This year's 9 percent increase in premiums is especially painful for workers and employers struggling through a weak recovery," said Drew Altman, president and CEO of the nonprofit Kaiser Family Foundation based in Menlo Park.

At least one Stockton employer who believes strongly in providing his employees with health coverage agrees. But in his case, the annual increases have been far stiffer than the national averages.

"The insurers are making it hard. They're squeezing employers hard to get them out of the picture," said Ben Tavakoli, owner of All Foreign & Domestic Body Shop on Navy Drive in the city's port district. The Record has followed Tavakoli's business since 2006 when he covered 100 percent of the cost of a health maintenance organization plan for his employees. The workers had to pick up the cost of covering their families, but they paid no money out of pocket for their own coverage.

Today, Tavakoli can only offer his 53 employees a Kaiser-Permanente Health Savings Account that carries a $2,700 deductible and requires the employee to pay $1,800 out of pocket before coverage kicks in. In 2010, a similar plan only carried a $1,500 deductible and $2,000 out of pocket.

As an employer, Tavakoli will pay $142,800 this year toward employee coverage. For a better plan in 2010, he paid $110,000. If he was still offering his workers the plan they had four years ago, it would cost him $276,000.

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