The results of the sixth annual ACS HR Solutions Canadian Health Care Trend Survey are now available

This years results represent the fourth consecutive year of declining trends led by prescription drugs. Specifically, the prescription drug trend decreased to 14.31% from 15.13% last year, and the medical plan trend decreased to 12.52% from 13.76% last year. This years drug trend reflects the impact of the withdrawal of anti-inflammatories from the marketplace, said Samira Kaderali, ACS HR Solutions, National Practice Leader, Health & Welfare, Canada. We expect lower trends to continue in the near future, as the patents for a number of popular brand name drugs are due to expire within the next couple of years, and less expensive generic drugs are becoming more readily available.

Conducted in December 2005, the Canadian Health Care Trend Survey summarizes the trend factors used by major Canadian group insurers and Blue Cross agencies to project future uture health care plan costs for the calendar year 2006, and compares trends to results for each of the past four years.

The trend factors include several health benefit areas medical, hospital, prescription drugs, and dental. Trend factors for each benefit are also segregated into two components of total trend utilization and inflation (dental costs are compared on utilization only).

Eleven insurers responded to this years survey, representing approximately 88% of the Canadian group insurance market.

The survey found that the utilization of medical services (other than prescription drugs) is almost half of the utilization level in 2002. Said Kaderali, We believe this is due to plan sponsors tightening up coverage, such as lower annual maximums for paramedical practitioners.

In addition, the fees listed in the provincial dental fee guides for Ontario and Quebec are up 1% and 2%, respectively, from last year, with minimal change in utilization. This indicates that insurers and plan sponsors should expect higher claims in 2006.

Overall, the survey results show that in spite of employers efforts to contain costs through cost-sharing, managed formularies, and flexible benefits, health and dental costs are still rising more quickly than other group benefit plan components. To keep these costs down, said Kaderali, employers need to focus on modifying employee behaviour. This can be done through implementing health and wellness initiatives, in order to achieve long-term gains such as cost savings, increased productivity, and reduced short and long-term disability costs. Those employers that are aggressively managing not only the costs associated with their health care benefits, but also employee wellness in general, will enjoy the opportunity to realize a competitive advantage by attracting, engaging, and retaining the right talent.

The full survey results are available at: www.buckconsultants.com

ACS HR Solutions provides a wide range of human of human resource consulting and administration services in the Canadian marketplace. ACS has been providing HR consulting and actuarial services to Canadian companies for more than 30 years. Our Canadian suite of services includes Health & Welfare Consulting, Total Benefit Outsourcing services for traditional and flexible group benefit plans, Capital Accumulation Plans, and Defined Benefit pension plans, Retirement Consulting (including actuarial services and tax & legal consulting), Investment Consulting, and Communications Services. ACS HR Solutions operates offices in Toronto, Montreal, and Ottawa.

ACS HR Solutions is owned by ACS, Inc., a global FORTUNE 500 company with more than 55,000 people supporting client operations in nearly 100 countries, which provides business process outsourcing and information technology solutions to world-class commercial and government clients. The Companyís Class A common stock trades on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol ACS.

News and other information about ACS and ACS HR Solutions is available at www.acs-inc.com and www.buckconsultants.ca

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