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Health Premium Hikes
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Business New Haven
2/4/2002
By:
Susan Cornell
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Many small employers in Connecticut and around the country are struggling with steep health insurance premium increases - and many are passing on some of the pain to workers in the form of larger co-pays and deductibles or higher premiums. The soaring premiums threaten to increase the number of uninsured, which already tops 38 million in the U.S.
Insurers say rates are rising between 12 percent and 17 percent nationally - an average that includes both small and large businesses and marks the steepest rate increases since 1991. Many small employers in Connecticut and other states with similar pricing rules are shouldering increases doubling or tripling the average.
Agents and employers report that premium increases for small Connecticut employers and the self-employed are running from 13 percent to more than 50 percent. Small businesses tend to have the fewest resources to absorb rate shock. And, in Connecticut as elsewhere, they're subject to a legal double-blow that can result in mammoth price hikes: Businesses with one to 50 employees get across-the-board rate hikes, and premiums also rise on each employee who during the year has passed into a higher age bracket.
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