More wages, less health insurance. In a recent survey, one in 5 persons with employer-based coverage claimed they would opt for fewer health benefits if they could get a bump in their wages. That is double the percentage who stated that they would make that choice in the year 2012.
“I do these surveys all the time, and it is unique where you see things change that quickly,” stated Paul Fronstin, director of the health research and education program at the Employee Benefit Research Institute, which conducted the survey of 1,500 employees with Greenwald & Associates.
Fronstin speculated that worker frustration with low wage progress may be driving the shift in attitudes.
Wage and salary increases have hovered over 2 to 3% in recent years, generally rising more slowly than cost increases of annual health care profits.
Overall, two-thirds of persons with employer-sponsored coverage reported that they were satisfied with their health insurance benefits in the year 2015, the survey discovered, lower than the 74% satisfaction figure in the year 2012. Meanwhile, the percentage of people who would accept a smaller paycheck for better health insurance benefits was 14% previous year, essentially unchanged from 15% 3 years earlier.
The growing willingness to trade health benefits for wages may be connected to some degree to the millennial generation’s growing share of the workforce, Fronstin said, referring to people born between roughly 1980 and 2000.
“The younger you are, the less significant health insurance is to you,” Fronstin stated.
As baby boomers retire and younger workers move in behind them, it may impact the mix of benefits that employers offer. But as today’s “young invincibles” age, chances are they will see more value in their health insurance and the pendulum will swing back again, according to Fronstin.
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