In the U.S. many employers pay a portion of health care costs for employees. As of 2019, the total annual medical costs for employees was just over 13 thousand U.S. dollars. That cost is expected to increase to 13.7 thousand U.S. dollars by 2020. There have been recent changes to employer-offered health care through the Affordable Care Act that requires employers with over 50 employees to offer affordable health care options to their employees.

U.S. health benefits at work

In the United States, both employers and employees may pay health care costs, depending on the work. In a recent survey U.S. residents were asked what benefits they expected from their employers, a vast majority of them said that they expect health care benefits. Despite the demand from employer-sponsored healthcare coverage, not all companies feel that they would be able to offer health coverage as an employment benefit. Another recent survey has illustrated that employer confidence in offering health insurance can change dramatically from year-to-year.

U.S. sick leave benefits

Another aspect of workplace health and wellness, is annual sick leave. In general, a majority of U.S. workers have access to a fixed number of paid sick days per year. However, a very small proportion of employees had access to paid sick leave as needed. As of 2017, around half of all employees utilized up to 5 days of sick leave per year. Despite that, there was still a large proportion, especially among those aged 18-30 years that went to work even though they were ill.

The region's purchases of other healthcare, from private companies/carers, as a share of the net cost, excluding the costs of pharmaceuticals in the benefit of other healthcare (%). Purchase of business is payment for a public task (core business) that has been handed over to someone else to perform. Net cost means gross cost less gross revenue.