Survey: High-deductible employee benefit plans triple

Consumers and businesses remain wary of high-deductible and "consumer-driven" healthcare plans, which have been available since 2001 and marketed as a way for businesses to reduce their own healthcare expenses, according to a regional survey. Cowden Associates' annual employee benefits survey reports that enrollment in such plans, and the availability of the plans, increased over last year. Now, 8.8% of survey participants offered employees high-deductible plans, up from 2.5% in the 2007 survey.