Survey: Per-employee healthcare costs expected to increase 4.1% in 2019

Costs in employer health benefit plans are projected to increase by 4.1% in 2019, according to early data from the Mercer National Survey of Employer-Sponsored Health Plans. The increase is on par with this year's growth of 4.2% and generally in line with the low single-digit increases employers have seen over the past decade. As Mercer noted, those increases could have been higher had employers not shifted costs to their employees through high-deductible plans."The things you can do to get a short-term, you know, a quick-hit improvement in your medical trend, usually involve what we call cost-shifting," said Beth Umland, director of research for health and benefits at Mercer, in an interview with FierceHealthcare.