The soaring
costs of health insurance policies have caused PR firms to
look carefully at this expense item, said StevensGouldPartners,
a consulting firm.
Acting at the request of PR firms that wanted to see how
other firms are handling what SGP calls "overwhelming
changes" in the healthcare area, SGP surveyed 190 firms
across the U.S. and received 160 responses (84%), which
it called a remarkable rate of return.
About 25% of the respondents make their employees pay the
full cost of healthcare insurance while 36% require full
payment for spouses and family members.
Ninety-four percent of respondents say employees pay something
towards their individual medical plans; 25% say their employees
pay up to 29%; 24% say their employees pay up to 59%, and
51% say their employees pay 80% and more.
With family plans, the contribution by employees is greater.
Fifteen percent of the firms have employees pay up to 30%
of the cost; 29% have them pay between 30% and 60%; 20%
of the firms have them pay from 60% to 90%, and 36% of the
firms have employees contribute 100%.
SGP partner Rick Gould said the payments are made directly
to the healthcare plans by employers since tax deductible
company funds are used.
Otherwise, he noted, medical expenses of the employees
would have to exceed 7% of gross before deductions could
be made by the employees on their income tax returns.
Solo practitioners are allowed to deduct the entire cost
of health insurance without regard to the 7% rule.
Costs of
Plans Not Surveyed
The SGC survey did not ask the costs of the various plans.
About half report using Blue Cross/Blue Shield except for
New York where Oxford was the most popular plan.
Depending on deductibles and other factors, individual
plans are typically in the $4,000-$6,000 range annually
while plans for two-parent families with more than one child
can range from $15,000 to $25,000.
Fifty-eight of the 160 respondents were from New York and
26 were from the Midwest.
Half had billings under $3 million; 34% were from $3M to
$10M; 13% from $10M to $25M and 4% were over $25M.
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