Health Insurance - An Unaccounted-for Workforce Cost

Barriers to Family Coverage

Looking at the cost data (Wisconsin and Data table for charts), it's easy to see why so few families are covered under Dungarvin's plans. Dungarvin's policy is to provide the same contribution for insurance premiums for a single employee as we do for an employee who needs insurance for their families. In the PPO plan, an employee's costs for family insurance have increased by 212% in seven years, increasing from $202.36 a month in 1996 to $631.55. In the HMO plan, Dungarvin made an exception to our policy, to abide by our contract with the Dean Plan, which calls for employers to bear a greater share of the premium costs for family coverage.

In the four years since we initiated the HMO, family coverage went from $323.46 to $392.81 a month, for a 21% increase. However, Dungarvin's monthly costs for this premium, during this time, have increased by 165%, from $98.70 to $261.87.

Similarly, for single coverage, Dungarvin's costs went from $90 per month in 1996 under the PPO plan, to $247.95, for an increase of 176%. Whereas, for the HMO, the costs went from $98.70 a month in 1998 to $148.34 in 2001, an increase of 165%.

Clearly, these insurance premium price increases exceed the general rate of inflation; the Consumer Price Index as a whole rose by about 15% for the same period presented in the graphs, from 1996 - 2001.

On To Drawing conslusions: What do these data mean?