Are consumer-driven health plans still on a test drive?

Only 4 percent of Americans who have health insurance are covered by "consumer-driven" health plans, the health insurance model that's expected to be the next generation of employment-based coverage.

These health reimbursement or health savings accounts (HRAs and HSAs) are supposed to make employees more aware of the true costs of employer-sponsored health care -- and thus more frugal stewards of their health care dollars.

The Employee Benefit Research Institute finds that the percentage of workers with HRAs or HSAs has grown exceedingly slowly since 2006. It went up just 1 percentage point from 2008 to 2009.

But here's something that changed more: The percentage of employers making contributions to such plans dropped from 67 percent in 2008 to 63 percent in 2009.

The research organization said that among adults with employment-based health benefits, 39 percent were eligible for some kind of consumer-driven health coverage this year.

On top of the 4 percent of employees who've chosen HRA or HSA coverage, another 4.9 percent this year are in a high-deductible plan that was eligible for an HSA but hadn't opened an account.