Dallas employers expected to see 9 percent increase in health care costs

Higher medical claims, an aging workforce and reverberations from a new health care law will lead to an expected 9 percent health care cost increase for Dallas employers next year, according to a study released Monday.

Dallas will experience its highest health care cost increase in more than nine years, according to Hewitt Associates, a human resources company in Lincolnshire, Ill.

This year health care costs in Dallas increased 3.7 percent, compared with 4.2 percent in 2009. In 2011, however, Hewitt is projecting an 8.7 percent average rate increase, which is in line with the national average of 8.8 percent.