Getting workers to get a handle on health care costs can be a tricky business, but here’s an easy way to think of it: Basic employer-sponsored health care coverage for an average American family costs nearly one month’s salary.

That new finding comes from Aon Consulting’s 2008 Benefits and Talent Survey released here in Washington during the Fifth Annual World Health Care Congress. And, as with most surveys like this, the Benefits and Talent Survey comes with a lot of caveats:

• The median annual contribution for family health care coverage is $3,120.
• The income for a median household in the U.S. is $48,201 annually, according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s report “2006 Income, Poverty and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States,” which Aon uses to reference the number.
• The $3,120 amount is obviously not one-twelfth of $48,201, but seems to assume about a 25 percent tax bracket overall, meaning take-home pay of about $3,000 per month.
• And, Aon’s report takes some literary license since it says that “the amount these families spend on employer-sponsored health care per year continues to edge closer to one month’s salary.” In other words, YMMV—your mileage may vary.

Clearly, the notion that health care coverage is edging “closer to one month’s salary” is a hot-button “hook” to the survey—one that I happily fell into—to get you to read more. That’s a good thing, because there are some other interesting findings beyond the dollar amount. For instance:

• Overall, Aon says that the 1,100 U.S. organizations taking part in the survey say that their health care costs have increased 10 percent annually since 2006.
• The cost to workers has gone up even more—15 percent in 2007 and 22 percent since 2006.
• Although employers have traditionally used cost shifting to reduce rising health care costs, organizations are now focusing on implementing employee wellness programs. “For example, 46 percent of employers today are implementing smoking cessation programs, up from 14 percent of employers in 2007,” Aon reports.
• Surprisingly, despite the push for more health and wellness programs, “the majority of employers do not have a process in place to measure program impact or track return on investment. For example, 92 percent of organizations do not have a data tracking process in place for overweight employees, and 87 percent of employers do not have a data tracking process in place for tobacco users.”

I was surprised by that last finding because one would think that organizations would be focused on how wellness programs do in furthering the ultimate goal—lowering health care costs by getting workers to focus on taking better care of their health.

The Aon study agreed, almost understating the obvious: “Tracking and benchmarking employee metrics must go hand in hand with implementing wellness programs and must be measured to determine the return on investment and changes in productivity.”