Cost-cutting and shrinking costs suggest the average increase in employer health benefit costs will rise next year at the lowest rate in a more than a decade.

A federal program allowing people who lose their jobs to keep the employer-provided insurance expired Aug. 31 after three extensions, leaving millions of beneficiaries and their dependents uninsured.

One-fifth of small business owners who offer health insurance to their workers expect to significantly change their benefits package the next time they renew their health plan as a result of federal health reform, according to a new survey.

Employer-sponsored insurance (ESI) eroded “significantly” in the last decade, although federal health reform is expected to reverse the decline for small employers, two studies say.

Nearly one-third of U.S. employers could stop offering health insurance when the federal health reform law takes hold in January 2014, according to a new study.

Two new federal reports appear to justify keeping self-insured health plans from greater regulation, according to a self-insurance plan trade group.

Two notices issued by the Internal Revenue Service make abiding by a new business reporting requirement in the health reform law optional until 2013, allowing employers more time to update their payroll systems.

Premiums and deductibles have risen “sharply” since 2003 and are outpacing workers’ payroll increases, although the new health reform law may “reverse” the rate increases, according to a new report.

Federal health reform is being blamed for up to one-quarter of the increase to employers and employees’ health insurance costs for 2011, according to a new analysis.

A collection of nine U.S. metropolitan areas, including five in California and Philadelphia, experienced higher than average increases in their health premiums for this plan year.