Choosing a healthcare plan can be extremely complicated, but it’s necessary to attract and retain good workers

Again, healthcare costs are going up. According to a recent study from Mercer, total health benefit cost per employee in 2027 is expected to rise 8.2% – after employers’ planned cost-reduction measures (without action, employers told Mercer their existing plans would rise about 11%). This would be the highest increase since 2003.

And, again, we see the same reaction from employers. The Wall Street Journal recently reported that even as healthcare costs have gone up, the share of these costs coming out employees’ paychecks has “shot up” even faster.

Affordability and small businesses’ economic woes feature heavily in the House race for Wisconsin’s third district

After 18 years in business, Erin Klaus is closing her storefront, a handmade artisan market in downtown Eau Claire, Wisconsin, at the end of the year.

She opened Tangled Up in Hue amid a recession, during a time when downtown was “kind of a ghost town”, weathering construction and the pandemic. But the current economic crisis proved too much. She’s seen a downward trend in sales for two years, and was dipping into her own pocket from her other job, as the executive director of business non-profit Downtown Eau Claire Inc, to pay staff.