Fewer employees are likely to get health benefits in retirement as employers drop or change the benefit, says a new report by the Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI).

At the same time more employees believe they will continue to receive benefits in retirement than actually will, says EBRI, a nonpartisan research organization that focuses on retirement and benefits issues.

Earlier changes made by employers eliminated benefits for new employees rather than people who were employees at the time, but employees are beginning to "age into" the non-covered group, EBRI says. More employees now expect that they will receive benefits than actually will.

Paul Fronstin, head of health benefits research at EBRI, and is co-author of the report, Employment-Based Retiree Benefits: Trends in Access and Coverage, 1997-2010.

"The data show that workers are still more likely to expect retiree health benefits than retirees are actually likely to have those benefits, but the expectations gap is closing," Fronstin said. "By 2010, 32 percent of [current] workers expected retiree health benefits, while only 25 percent of early retirees and 16 percent of Medicare-eligible retirees had them."

The companies that have continued to provide health benefits into retirement have made changes in the benefit package they offer: raising premiums that retirees are required to pay, tightening eligibility, limiting or reducing benefits, or some combination of these.

EBRI notes that increasing retiree contributions tops the list of likely future changes among employers that still offer the benefit: 43 percent of employers say they are very likely to increase the retirees' portion of premiums next year, and another 35 percent are somewhat likely to do so.

-Karen DeMasters