How to evaluate employer sponsored health insurance plans?

We are a small but growing company. We have not provided any health insurance for our employees, but are now looking at options. There are a host of options. We do not necessary need recommendations of specific providers. At this stage, we need to know how to ask intelligent questions. For example, we have a mostly young and healthy staff. Should we just offer a high deductible option?

The primary considerations when evaluating the various plan options for offering health insurance to employees are the benefit to employees of the various plan types as well as the cost to the employer for offering the various plans (I am assuming you are not considering self-insuring since your organization is relatively small). Generally speaking, PPO and high deductible plans have steadily increased in popularity with employees, which may be an indication that employees perceive more benefit from these types of plans than from HMO and POS plans. Employers typically contribute less to high deductible and POS plans, than to PPO and HMO plans. The Kaiser Family Foundations 2014 Employer Health Benefits Survey provides a wealth of information that may be useful to you in comparing the average costs of the various plan types to your business and your employees as well as coverage trends and more.