As US health care costs rise, so do insurance premiums and the amount of money employers spend on them, from 1996 to 2005, the average contribution rose by 5 % a year in real terms, to $5,068. Some employers are rescinding health care benefits altogether, while others are limiting the number of eligible employees, so enrollment in employer-paid schemes is stagnating or declining, according to a McKinsey Global Institute study. This research also reveals growing disparities in the % of employees at different income levels receiving employer-paid health benefits: only 22 % of employees in the lowest income group (earning an average of US$14,800 a year), but 56 %, 81 %, and 89 % of those in the lower-middle, upper-middle, and top income groups, respectively.
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