Remember what your employer told you about health care costs?

Well, it probably went something like this.

“Today we are announcing a new health plan. This plan is necessary to help us control health care costs. Studies have shown that this type of plan can better manage health care costs and help you to be a better consumer of health care.”

Maybe that new plan was a PPO or POS or HMO or more likely a HDHP with the new promise of positively affecting health care costs.

What’s this?

These are the most recent annual health care trend rates (the rate at which health care spending is increasing) for all four type of health plans. Do you see any big success that stands out? Any silver bullets among the group?

Just so you know, these are the “slower” rates of increase predicted for employer plans. FYI, the Core inflation rate is 1.8%

Preferred Provider
Organization (PPO) 8.7%

Point-of-service
(POS) 8.5%

Health Maintenance
Organization (HMO) 8.6%

High Deductible
Health Plan (HDHP) 8.6%. This plan was supposed to be our latest salvation.