Costs for large U.S. employers that pay for their employees’ medical care will increase on average 5% to more than $13,000 per employee in 2022. This cost increase projection would be slightly less than what employers budgeted this year compared to last, according to Aon, a leading global professional services firm.
Budgeted health care costs for clients increased to an average of $12,792 per employee in 2021, an increase of 5.2% from 2020. The analysis uses the firm’s Health Value Initiative database, which captures information for more than 700 U.S. employers representing 5.6 million employees.
In terms of 2021 plan costs, employer costs were budgeted to increase 6.2%, while employee premiums from pay checks were slated to increase a more modest 1.2% from 2020. Plan costs represent the employer’s and employee’s combined premiums for medical and prescription drug costs but exclude employee out-of-pocket payments such as deductibles, co-pays and co-insurance. On average, employers subsidize about 81% of the plan cost, up from 80 percent in 2020. Employees paid the remainder.