The Rise in Employer Health Costs -- Phase 2

What factors have contributed to the rise in employer health care costs, and how can this information be used to design improved benefit packages and more effective cost containment policies? The second phase of this study, included three main types of analyses: 1) descriptive and multivariate analyses to examine changes in employee health expenditures and benefit-premium ratios, the factors contributing to the changes, and how these factors differ across firms; 2) an analysis of groups whose policies have been canceled, in order to identify factors that affect the likelihood of cancellation; and 3) a patient-level analysis comparing utilization of groups with high expenditure growth rates and groups experiencing low growth rates.