Talk to any business owner – from the tiniest company to the largest corporation – and you’ll find out that healthcare benefits are the one workplace issue that gives everyone nightmares.

They would be foolish not to worry about the rising costs of providing medical coverage.

Healthcare is often the most expensive employee benefit and it only makes sense that trying to control its cost is a practical business tool.

Ballooning Payments

Recently, the Society for Human Resource Management reported that healthcare costs are expected to rise 11.2 percent next year, down slightly from the past year’s rate of increase.

This is part of a long-running pattern in which the cost of healthcare greatly exceeds the inflation rate or other increases in the cost of doing business.

How can anyone ignore this?

The implications of failure to achieve healthcare cost containment are not pretty. Every worker should be aware of them and thinking about the ramifications.

Large employers, which usually offer the best benefits, have been able to negotiate lower-than-average rates because of their size. To be competitive and attract the best employees, they typically have a benefit package that includes healthcare coverage and some type of pension provision, whether it is a traditional defined-benefit plan or some level of matching employee contributions to 401k accounts.

But now the biggest companies are feeling pressure from global competition. Foreign operators can pay lower salaries and provide fewer benefits than in the United States, and jobs that can be relocated often are.

That ratchets up the pressure on US companies to cut their payroll costs by eliminating jobs and reducing healthcare benefits for those who remain.

Small Firms Face Squeeze

The National Federation of Independent Businesses reports that cost and availability of healthcare is the most crucial issue facing small

businesses. And, because an estimated 99.7 percent of all US businesses have 500 or fewer employees, this is a huge headache.

The result is that fewer small businesses will likely be able to offer healthcare coverage in the future. And workers who enjoy those benefits today can expect to be paying a higher share of the cost of healthcare or see their benefits eliminated.

This is not a new issue. It has been building for two decades. But the need for affordable healthcare coverage has never been greater in our society. Today, a moderately serious illness is enough to drive any middle-class household toward insolvency.

Government policies long have established employment as the vehicle for most people to obtain medical benefits. Job tenures have gotten shorter and less secure and, at the same time, healthcare costs have spiraled upward.

This double whammy is putting the squeeze on everyone. But workers who have taken healthcare benefits for granted can no longer do so.

Isn’t it time to figure out a way to give adequate and affordable healthcare coverage to everyone, instead of relying on the good intentions of employers to provide it?