Increasing costs for health insurance premiums reflect the health care economy and measure the fiscal pressure on employers who typically provide health insurance to their employees. During the latter half of the 1990s and beginning of this decade, insurance premiums at the national level grew at greater than three times the pace of inflation.
The average cost of insurance premiums in Pennsylvania increased slightly slower than the national average. To meet rising costs, private employers either divert profits from other business activities and/or require employees to contribute more to the cost of insurance, or cease to sponsor insurance altogether.
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