Employer-sponsored health insurance premiums are up across the country at a time when wages are stalled, forcing some workers to hand over 28 percent of their paycheck just to keep coverage, according to a troubling new national survey of employer programs.
“The costs employees and their families pay out-of-pocket for deductibles and their share of premiums continued to rise, consuming a greater share of incomes across the country. In all but a handful of states, average deductibles more than doubled over the past decade for employees working in large and small firms. Workers are paying more but getting less protective benefits,” said a report issued Thursday by the Commonwealth Fund.
While the report revealed a slowing in premium hikes since Obamacare kicked in, the decade of flat income meant that employees had to increase their insurance payments by as much as 175 percent, with workers in the South getting slammed the hardest.
The report, titled “State Trends in the Cost of Employer Health Insurance Coverage, 2003–2013,” found that premiums grew faster than income in every single state and that average premiums were up to 28 percent of the median income of some states.
The average premium paid by workers and employees combined was $16,000, but differences in states were wide.
Said the report:
Companies, to keep their costs low, have shifted more of the funding responsibility to workers. The report said that in 2013, employees contributed an average 21 percent of the total premium for single-person coverage, up from 17 percent in 2003. Add in premium hikes, and employees are paying 93 percent more.
Paul Bedard, the Washington Examiner’s “Washington Secrets” columnist, can be contacted at [email protected].
