If your a small business owner in America you are used to having to find solutions to the issues at hand.  Recently its been interest rate increases and inflation that have threatened the bottom line.

 

And, just when you think you might see some light at the end of the tunnel such as inflation rates coming in lower than expected lately (here’s an article from Forbes on that) and the cost of Thanksgiving meal costs for a group of ten dropping about 4.5% from 2022 to 2023 (here’s an article and video from CBS on that) it appears that employers are on the precipice of another health care cost increase to cancel out that good news.

 

In this recent survey from the Kaiser Family Foundation you will notice that as of July 2023 respondents reported that health care premiums for employer sponsored plans increased 7% in the last year and that there is an expectation that those costs will continue to rise.  The survey showed that coverage for family coverage averaged about $23,968 per employee last year while single coverage averaged $8,435 per employee.

 

In this article from Yahoo Finance, Andrea Ducas, vice-president of health policy at the Center for American Progress said the following, “I think it just sort of demonstrates the continued strain that employees and employers are facing when it comes to being able to afford to both offer health insurance to employees and then for employees to afford that coverage.”

 

And, according to this survey from Kaiser, since 2013 employer contributions towards health care coverage have risen 47% and worker or employee contributions have risen 44%.  In simple math, dividing by the ten years between the numbers that’s an average of about 4.5% per year — which is about 25% higher than the rate that general inflation (3.6% which includes 2022 and 2023) was at for that time period.

 

The Yahoo article speculatively posits that “. . .  part of the bump in premiums could be due to an increase in utilization of healthcare services that people had put off during the pandemic, along with new treatments that cost more money.”

 

The same article also notes that “Employers may also be reluctant to reduce the value and attractiveness of their coverage offerings during this low period of low unemployment and intense competition for labor.”  With what we’ve heard about the labor market in death care that thought is a distinct possibility. . .i.e. if you are not competitive with benefits, you may very well have a difficult problem in finding great employees.

 

So, while we may be entering a period were inflationary costs are held in check and it is quite possible that in 2024 the Federal Reserve will begin easing of interest rates, funeral home owners and managers may still have to sharpen their pencils to find greater margins in order to pay for health insurance benefit costs that seem destined to rise.

 

More news from the world of Death Care:

• Why these women are weaving caskets out of willow.  Fast Company
• Young Purcell grad breaking both age and gender molds as new funeral director.  The Purcell Register (OK)
• The 24-year old embalmer  preparing bodies for “last goodbyes“.  BBC (Great Britain)
• Betterleave raises funding to transform how organizations support their members through grief and loss.  Cision PR Newswire

 

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