Employer-sponsored health coverage, long the gold standard in American healthcare, is imploding. This once-popular and affordable insurance is becoming increasingly out of reach as spiraling costs force employers to drop plans and employees to opt out. Congress is quietly working in bipartisan fashion to pass healthcare legislation that can restore this crucial coverage if stronger price-transparency provisions are incorporated. 

The average annual employer-sponsored family health premium is now $27,000 — about as much as a new base-model car. This cost, which is generally split between employers and employees at a 75% to 25% ratio, has increased by 1,000% since 1987, about six times faster than the overall inflation rate.