CNN
\n \u00a0\u2014\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n Battered by multiple years of high health care costs, employers are planning to shift more of the expense to workers in 2026, a new survey released Wednesday found.\n <\/p>\n
\n Just over half of employers are planning to adjust their health insurance offerings to increase staffers\u2019 share of the cost, such as instituting higher deductibles or annual out-of-pocket maximums, according to Mercer\u2019s Survey on Health and Benefit Strategies for 2026.\n <\/p>\n
\n The tight labor market and rising cost of living in recent years had made companies more reluctant to add to workers\u2019 financial burden, Mercer said. Some 45% of employers reported in 2025 that they would shift more costs to staffers.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cEmployers are thinking, we\u2019re at a point where we can\u2019t do another year of not passing along some of the cost increases,\u201d said Beth Umland, director of research at Mercer\u2019s Health and Benefits business.\n <\/p>\n
\n Companies expected their health benefits expenses to jump by nearly 6% this year, after experiencing a 4.5% increase in 2024.\n <\/p>\n
\n Costs will likely rise at an even higher rate next year, driven in part by patients\u2019 increased usage and doctors using artificial intelligence to more accurately bill insurers, said Sunit Patel, US chief health actuary at Mercer.\n <\/p>\n
\n Another area of cost concern is coverage of anti-obesity GLP-1 medications, which are very popular but very expensive. Nearly two-thirds of companies with 20,000 or more workers provided such coverage in 2024, while 44% of employers with 500 or more workers did.\n <\/p>\n
\n The pace of employers adding such coverage is likely to slow in 2026, Umland said.\n <\/p>\n
\n Companies may be reluctant to stop providing the benefit but may narrow eligibility or require more documentation \u2014 making it more difficult for workers to access it, Patel said.\n <\/p>\n
\n Meanwhile, employers remain committed to providing mental health services for staffers, the survey found. More are offering onsite Employee Assistance Program counseling services \u2014 some 35% will do so next year, up from 29% this year. They are also providing more sessions, moving to six to eight sessions, rather than the traditional three to five.\n <\/p>\n
\n Also, as employers increasingly require staffers to return to the office, companies are more interested in providing child care or elder care benefits, Mercer found. Some 54% of large employers provide \u2014 or will offer next year \u2014 at least one child care resource, including a platform to search for child care, access to backup child care services or tuition discounts.\n <\/p>\n
\n Likewise, 58% of large employers offer or plan to provide at least one type of elder care benefit, including grief counseling, a platform to search for elder care or access to backup elder care services.\n <\/p>\n
\n Some 59% of employers will offer at least one resource to support women\u2019s reproductive health, including lactation support, high-risk pregnancy and pre-conception family planning.\n <\/p>\n
\n Employees will find out more details about their health care benefits for the coming year during the annual open enrollment period, which typically occurs in the fall.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CNN \u00a0\u2014\u00a0 Battered by multiple years of high health care costs, employers are planning to shift more of…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":68395,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[210,1141,1142,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-68394","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health-care","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-health-care","10":"tag-healthcare","11":"tag-united-states","12":"tag-unitedstates","13":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114865515061313826","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68394","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=68394"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68394\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/68395"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=68394"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=68394"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=68394"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}