DEFINING THE CONTRIBUTION:

The cost of employee health benefits in 2012 grew just 4.1 percent nationally, the smallest increase in 15 years. [...]

Twenty-two percent of all employers offer consumer-directed plans, and the percentage leaps to 59 percent among the largest employers.

An employer's cost of coverage in a typical consumer-directed plan is about 20 percent lower than the cost of providing employee access to a more traditional Preferred Provider Organization plan, the Mercer report said.

Nearly half of employers, 45 percent, said they now had or were considering using a defined contribution plan that would require their employees to pay anything above the employer's set contribution.

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