From The Capitol Hill Summit of Lawmakers and CEOs:

Owners of small, medium and large business alike are concerned that their workers will soon join the ranks of the uninsured.  

Faced with rising health care costs, small, medium and large businesses say they must continue to pass a portion of the increased costs on to their employees by requiring them to pay a mounting share of the premiums, co-pays, or deductibles, a new survey of business leaders shows. Four in five business owners (79 percent) who anticipate increases in their health care costs say they are concerned about their employees' ability to shoulder the projected increases.

Health Care Costs Expected to Rise an Additional 12 percent. Who Will Pay?

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation today released their study, "Attitudes of Business Leaders Regarding Health Care Coverage" at a Capitol Hill briefing led by legislators, governors, and Fortune 500 executives. The survey of more than 600 business owners and benefits managers whose companies currently pay for at least some health insurance benefits shows that companies of all sizes expect health care costs to jump an additional 12 percent over the next year. Business owners surveyed say they will ask their employees to pay an average of 21 percent of the increase. Survey respondents estimate that their employees currently pay, on average, 29 percent of the cost of their own health insurance premiums -- up six percentage points from 2003.

According to figures from the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Health Research Educational Trust, premiums average $10,880 annually for family coverage ($907 per month) in 2005, and $4,024 ($335 per month) for individual coverage.  

Small businesses are no longer the only ones unable to provide medical insurance for their employees

"Business leaders know firsthand how important it is to offer health insurance, both because it improves the health of the workforce and because it makes their businesses more attractive to employees," said Risa Lavizzo-Mourey, MD, MBA, president and CEO of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. "Small and mid-sized companies have long struggled to provide affordable health insurance for their employees, but now large companies with thousands of employees are finding it difficult to offer affordable health coverage.

Our nation's leaders need to act on this issue before more and more working Americans find themselves unable to afford health care coverage."

The Results of the Survey Show, Employers Worry Their Employees May Drop Insurance

Employers worry that their workforce may drop insurance because of rising costs. More than one-third (35 percent) of businesses that report an expected increase in health care costs say it is likely their employees would consider dropping their health care coverage because of this increase in out-of-pocket costs.