Report: U.S. health insurance deductible costs rising much faster than wages
While health insurance premiums for employer-sponsored plans rose modestly in 2015, more employees are paying deductibles and those deductible costs are rising faster than wages, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation.
Health insurance premiums for employer-sponsored plans rose about 4 percent on average in 2015, continuing a decade-long trend of moderate growth, according to the The Kaiser Family Foundation/Health Research & Educational Trust’s 2015 Employer Health Benefits Survey.
The California-based nonprofit’s 17th annual report released this week found that since 2005, premium costs have risen an average of 5 percent every year – an improvement over the 11 percent annual average between 1999 and 2005. The average annual premium for single coverage is $6,251 in 2015, of which workers on average pay $1,071; and the average family premium is $17,545, of which employees contribute an average of $4,955.
But deductibles are putting increasing pressure on workers’ wallets.
Since 2010, both the share of workers who pay deductibles and the size of those deductibles have increased sharply. As a result of both trends, there has been a 67 percent rise in deductibles nationally since 2010, the survey said. Over the same five-year period, the cost of single premiums have risen 24 percent; workers’ wages have climbed 10 percent; and inflation went up 9 percent.
With deductibles rising so much faster than premiums and wages, it’s no surprise that consumers have not felt the slowdown in health spending,” Drew Altman, president and CEO of the foundation, said in a statement.
This year, 57 percent of employers offered health benefits to at least some of their workers, up slightly from the previous year’s 55 percent, according to the report.
The Kaiser Family Foundation found that 81 percent of covered workers are in plans with a general annual deductible, and they average $1,318 for single coverage this year. Workers in larger firms of more than 200 workers tend to pay much less in deductibles -- $1,105 on average – than those in firms of 3 to 199 workers.
Beginning in 2015, employers with at least 100 full-time equivalent employees must offer health benefits to their full-time workers that meet minimum standards for value and affordability or pay a penalty. Next year, the requirement will apply to employers with 50 or more full-time equivalent workers.
Nearly 2,000 small and large employers in the U.S. participated in the survey, conducted between January and June.
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