Misleading headline on healthcare costs?
Reporting on the same Mercer Human Resource Consulting survey I covered yesterday, USATODAY.com has this: “Workers bear brunt of rising health care in ’03.”
Read into the story, and find this: “Jon Gabel, an economist who provides a study to the Kaiser Family Foundation, says the Mercer numbers seem low, although he agrees many employers did shift costs to workers. Without such changes, Gabel says, his figures show employers would have averaged a 17% increase this year. As it was, they saw about a 14% rise, according to his analysis.”
So how are workers bearing the brunt, when employers are sucking up 14%, and only saved 3% by shifting more to employees?
