A new report from America’s Health Insurance Plans has shown that enrollment in high-deductible plans is on the rise; MedPageToday.com reports that enrollment increased by 25 percent in the past year, “bringing the total enrollment in those plans to 10 million.”
The report measured high-deductible plans that “meet eligibility requirements that would allow an individual to open a tax-free health savings account (HSA) to pay for healthcare expenses that fall under the plan’s deductible,” states MedPageToday.com. High-deductible health plans normally cover preventive care services without the patient having to meet the deductible, and previously, high-deductible plans were favored among people who purchased insurance on the individual market.
But in the past year, high-deductible plans among the large-group insurance market significantly grew, leading Paul Fronstin, PhD, of the Employee Benefit Research Institute, to believe that this could be because “employers are feeling increasingly overwhelmed by contributing to traditional insurance plans for their employees.”
Fronstin went on to say that, “The bottom line is employers are wrestling with cost increases, and one way to address cost increases is raising deductibles.” And by raising the deductible, “you are buying down the premium,” states Alwyn Cassil, a spokeswoman for The Center for Studying Health System Change.
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