Friday, November 28, 2008

$1,000 is Average Deductible For Group PPOs Health Insurance

By Ethan Kalvin

Mercer, an HR consulting and investment firm, recently reported that and employer sponsored PPO insurance plan's averge deductible is now $1,000. That has doubled since last year. $500 was the average from 2001 up to 2007, in 2000 it was $250.

So why are group health insurance deductibles increasing? There were a few key points to this increase, says the report. The first was that health care cost for employers went up by 6 percent for the last four years. That's led to a near-nationwide trend of cost shifting to employees through higher deductibles and higher premiums.

HSAs and high deductible consumer directed health plans are becoming more popular. This is another reason for this. In the end, employees are still paying more out of pocket.

There are advantages to HSAs and the like. They are tax free and you still carry major medical in case of emergencies.

These kinds of plans are usually better for people who don't require many doctor visits. The end result is, when deductibles rise, our wallets gets tighter.

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