Obamacare may have something to with this change though but the FB poster needs to understand there are also tremendous improvements too such as unlimited preventive care, no lifetime maximums and coverage for dependents to age 26, Typically employees see a combination of plan design features such as raises in the deductible and maximum out of pocket amounts coupled with an increase in the employee contribution to be in the plan. These actions are normally based on the projections provided by their actuaries on what the medical trend will be for the next year. Some generous employees are willing to absorb some of this increase or all of it to keep the plan design and costs to the employee unchanged. The company I worked for raised contributions last year but it was the first such increase in 4 or 5 years. By the way, health care trends are flat this year and are projected to rise only 5% or so next year. Companies who have delayed implementing any of the improvements of HCR will see bigger increases though. I'm fortunate enough to have an employer that implemented all of the improvements early so the only thing we will see changed in 2013 is the 100% benefit for contraception and the cost associated with that change is very low. Some companies waited because they really believed Obamacare would be repealed. There was a "grandfathered" provision that allowed companies to wait until 2014 to make mandated changes and many companies took advantage of that provision. That was a risky approach in my opinion since if Obama had lost there is a possibility that repubs would have tried to repeal some or all of it even though they said they would keep most of the "good stuff" that people like but you can never trust the bastards.
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