The study in Health Affairs by Paul Ginsburg and Jeremy Pickreign of the Center for Studying Health System Change, analyzed a range of health care cost and premium data. It found that not only did health insurance premiums increase by less than 1 percent in 1996, but that underlying cost trends, which predict health insurance premiums in the future, continued their dramatically low rate of increase in the 3 percent range. Employees paying a larger share. While employers have had great success in holding down insurance premium cost increases, their employees have seen little of the benefit. As long as these trends remain favorable, then premium increases will not rise rapidly.
Insurance profits down.
What this difference between health care cost increases and premium increases means is that insurers' profit margins are dropping.