A new study looking at how workers of different ages view health insurance does not reveal gaping generational differences, but it does suggest America's youngest employees are happier with their health care options and are more engaged in choosing their plans.
That's according to a survey of roughly 3,600 employees with employer-sponsored health insurance conducted by the Employee Benefit Research Institute.
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As employers look for ways to cut health care costs, they are increasingly shifting more of the burden of paying for insurance onto their employees. At the same time, they are also increasingly offering more options to workers, often in consideration of young workers who would prefer a high-deductible plan with low premiums.
In this health care landscape, it is perhaps no surprise young workers feel the best about their options and older workers, who both use medical services more and remember the good old days of generous health plans with low premiums and low deductibles, feel the lousiest.
And yet, the survey results curiously suggest that members of Generation X are slightly more likely to be unhappy with their health plan than the oldest employees.
Sixty-two percent of millennials say they are satisfied with the ease of picking a health care plan from the options offered by their employer. That compared to 48 percent of Generation X members and 50 percent of baby boomers.
Similarly, 59 percent of millennials are happy with the information available to help them pick a plan, compared to 43 percent of Gen Xers and 48 percent of boomers.
When it comes to the number of health plans to pick from, only half of millennials say they're totally satisfied, but that's in contrast to only 38 percent of Gen Xers and 42 percent of boomers.
Finally, just over half of millennials (54 percent) say they are content with the availability of "affordable" health plans, compared to only 37 percent of Gen Xers and 41 percent of boomers.
However, when the respondents are asked about the specifics of care, it is the older workers who are more likely to be happy with their situation. Baby boomers are slightly more likely to say they are happy with their choice of doctors and the ease with which they can schedule an appointment.
While young employees are more likely to exercise and engage in a range of healthy behaviors, they are also more likely to smoke, suggesting a ripe opportunity for employers to lower health costs through smoking cessation efforts, the report argues. Because millennials are more engaged in picking their insurance policies, "plan sponsors may want to experiment with plan design and education to decrease the rates of smoking among the youngest generational cohort."
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