Spouses and children often cost group health plans more than the active employees do.
Advanced Plan for Health, Irving, Texas, a health cost control firm, says costs associated with dependents were higher than employee costs at its client employers both in 2007 and 2008.
Dependent husbands are the most expensive, the firm reports.
The average 40-year-old male active employee has about $281 in medical costs per month, but a 40-year-old dependent male will have about $422 in medical costs per month, the firm says.
One lesson is that employers need to make sure that dependents have as much access to wellness and condition management programs as active employees do, the firm says.
In other health coverage statistics news:
- A unit of UnitedHealth Group Inc., Minnetonka, Minn., found that college-age Americans do value health insurance.