Early responses to Mercer’s annual survey indicate cost will rise 5.7 percent next year, September 4, 2008: “After three years of double-digit growth in the first half of the decade, annual health benefit cost increases slowed to about 6 percent in 2005 and have stayed there ever since. Preliminary survey findings released today by Mercer indicate that cost growth is likely to slow a little further in 2009, to 5.7 percent – which would be the lowest increase in more than 10 years. Last year, Mercer’s annual survey found that average health benefit cost per employee rose 6.1 percent in 2007.”