It's not just the health of their employees that employers need to be worried about. It's the cost—and what that cost does to employee financial wellness. Big as the problem is for employers, as they struggle to keep costs for health plans down, it could get bigger as they continue to offload increasing expenses onto their employees via higher costs overall, high-deductible health plans and more expensive plans overall. Those costs add to employees' financial burdens, already strained by a high cost of living, the burden of student loans, and salaries that rise only nominally, if at all. And yet, employees aren't connecting the dots: According to Bank of America's 2019 Workplace Benefits Report, the costs of their health care plan, and attendant costs for care that isn't covered, aren't on employees' radar when it comes to issues with their financial wellness. The report says "in 2018 when employees were asked what the core building blocks of financial wellness are, managing healthcare costs was ranked last." Yet the expense of the plan itself, as well as all the remaining costs to be paid out of the employee's pocket, add up to a significant burden that affects them not only now, while they're working, but will also weigh on them in retirement. The slides above examine 9 effects of the cost of health care on employee's financial wellness, based on Bank of America's recent report. Read more: |

• 4 parallels between physical and financial well-being
• Health care costs eating the young alive
• The weight of financial wellness is heavier than employers realize