Last year, health care costs rose by about 3%, but workers ended up paying around 13.7% more as companies pushed more costs off on workers. This year employers say that they expect health care costs to increase by 9 to 12%, but that they will use cost-saving measures like requiring employees to pay for more to bring costs down. While some blame the health care reform bill for higher costs, analysts say that most of those provisions are not in effect yet, and that when they do go into effect, the are expected to cause only a 1 to 2% increase in costs. Many say that the main cause for rising health care costs is the economy.
See "Workers' health insurance costs for 2011 include higher premiums and co-payments", N.C. Aizeman, The Washington Post, November 7, 2010