More than half of large employers intend to reduce benefits or shift costs to employees to control overall health plan costs, according to new data from Mercer. Employers estimate benefit plan costs would increase 9% if they took no action to control costs, Mercer found. The 2025 Mercer Survey on Health and Benefit Strategies also found that 51% of large employers say they are likely or very likely to shift costs to employees for their 2026 plans. It also found that health benefit costs to employees rose by 4.5% in 2024 and predicted a 5.8% increase for 2025 and 6.5% in 2026, including an 8.4% increase in specialty drug cost per employee in 2024. These higher costs follow a decade of annual cost increases averaging around 3% (except for a pandemic-related blip in the trend in 2021). Mercer found that inflation is no longer the main driver of rising healthcare costs, pointing to deeper issues for plan sponsors; instead, a growing workforce shortage fueled by an aging population and health system consolidation are intensifying price pressures.
