Employer Sponsored Health Insurance: Will it survive?

Cutting recurring costs is one of the best ways for a company to increase profits. With that being said, this is also one of the best ways to send employees packing. Over the past three to five years, more and more companies have decided that employer sponsored health insurance was something that they could not afford. In turn, this has forced many employees into a bad situation. These employees have three options: look for a new job that offers health insurance benefits, stay with the company and buy their own plan, or stay with the company and do without coverage. As you know, doing without health insurance should never be an option. But unfortunately, some people do not buy insurance because they simply don’t have the money.

Employers have two options if they are thinking about changing the way that they offer benefits. As mentioned above, they can simply cut out health insurance coverage altogether. Depending on the number of employees, this can cut tens of thousands of dollars worth of expenses per month.

If a company is not interested in cutting out health insurance altogether, they may ask the employee to pay a certain percentage of the premium. For example, the company may pay 50 percent and deduct the other half from the employee’s paycheck. While this lost money is a huge hit for some people, it is better than having to shop for an individual health insurance plan.

There will always be companies that offer employer sponsored health insurance. But with that being said, this number has been on the decline for the past couple of years. If you are currently receiving coverage from your employer, you should be glad that they have yet to make a change. The fact of the matter is that if financial times get bad, you may find yourself having to pay for some, if not all of your health insurance premium.

Overall, it will be interesting to see if this trend can reverse itself. While there is no reason to believe that this will happen right away, over time more companies may begin to see that offering health insurance is a benefit that they cannot afford to cut out. It may save them money, but it will cost them loyal employees in the long run.