There's only one cure for health care
Can you guess what it might be?
Survey: Small business health care costs rose 13 percent in 2003
By LINDA A. JOHNSON
AP Business Writer
April 15, 2004, 3:13 PM EDT
TRENTON, N.J. -- Companies in New Jersey saw the cost of providing health insurance to their employees jump 13 percent last year and expect this year to be the third straight with double-digit cost increases, a survey found.
The New Jersey Business & Industry Association's annual employer benefits survey, released Thursday, indicates the average cost for a year's health insurance for one employee could soon hit $7,000. Already, the average is $6,692, up $781 from 2002. That amount is a whopping 15 percent of the average wage of the companies' workers, now $43,940 per year.
"We are in a very dangerous period of hyperinflation in the cost of health insurance that is putting a tremendous, tremendous financial burden on both employers and employees alike," said Philip Kirschner, the association's president. Job creation has been stifled as well, he said.
The findings are based on responses to a January survey from 1,468 association members, 85 percent of whom have just 2 to 50 employees.
The survey found that altogether, health insurance costs for the participants rose 53 percent over the last four years. The average increase was 15 percent in 2002 and is projected to be 11 percent this year _ compared with increases of about 8 percent each year from 1999 through 2001 and only 3 percent in 1997 and 1998.
