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One big thing: According to Aon, average costs for U.S. employers that pay for their employees' health care will increase 8.5 percent to more than $15,000 per employee in 2024.  

• Zoom out: The projection increase, which assumes employers do not implement employee cost sharing increases and other cost-saving strategies, is nearly double the 4.5 percent increase to health care budgets that employers experienced from 2022 to 2023.
• Debbie Ashford, North America chief actuary for Health Solutions at Aon, said, "While economy-wide inflation spiked during the past two years, employer-sponsored health care costs did not see dramatic increases during the same time period due to the multi-year nature of typical medical provider contracts. Even though inflation is subsiding, health care trend is growing as medical providers push insurers for larger cost increases to cover the higher costs of wages and supplies that they endured during the last couple years but were unable to pass on to payers."
• Read more in Becker’s Payer Issues, Business Insurance, Collision Week, Crains Chicago Business, Healthcare Innovation, Human Resources Director, Human Resources Executive, MedCity News, National Association of Plan Advisors, PlanAdviser and PlanSponsor.  
• Aon plans to release the 2024 Global Medical Trend Rate report for all regions later this year.