Shelby Livingston September 25, 2019 12:30 PM
While premiums in
the Affordable Care Act marketplaces appear to have leveled out after several
years of sharp increases, the cost of employer-sponsored insurance has reached
a record high.
Companies and
their workers for the first time are shelling out more than $20,000 on average
for family health benefits in 2019, with employees picking up more than a
quarter of the cost, according to a national survey released
Wednesday.
The average
annual family premium rose 4.9% to $20,576 over 2018, far outpacing growth in
wages and inflation, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation's annual report
on employer coverage. Premiums for individual coverage grew more slowly, rising
4.2% to $7,188.
Workers' earnings
and overall inflation grew 3.4% and 2% respectively.
"The single
biggest issue in healthcare for most Americans is that their health costs are
growing much faster than their wages are," KFF President and CEO Drew
Altman said in a statement. "Costs are prohibitive when workers making
$25,000 a year have to shell out $7,000 a year just for their share of family
premiums."
Meanwhile, the
nationwide increase in ACA individual premiums
is expected to inch up just 0.5% and 1% on average, with many states
experiencing premium reductions for 2020 coverage, according to Dave Dillon, a
fellow with the Society of Actuaries who works with insurers and regulators to
develop rates.
Most people in
the United States—about 153 million—get their health insurance through their
jobs. Employer-sponsored coverage in the past has been left out of national
conversations about health insurance affordability, even though it has seen
enormous growth in costs over the last decade. More recently, though, experts
have suggested that the struggle among workers to afford employer health
coverage could be fueling interest in
Medicare-For-All proposals that eliminate job-based coverage.
Over the past 10
years, family premiums paid by employers and workers have grown nearly 54%.
Increasingly,
workers are picking up a larger portion of the premium. In 2019, they paid
$6,015 in premiums for family coverage, or about 29% of the total tab. Workers
with individual coverage contributed 17.3% toward the total premium.
Kaiser Family
Foundation also found that the average deductible among workers with single
coverage was $1,655, similar to last year but double what it was in 2009. About
82% of covered employees with deductibles they must meet before insurance will
pay for healthcare services.
Low-wage
employees face some of the biggest challenges affording employer coverage,
according to the survey. Among companies that offer health benefits, those with
workers making less than $25,000 a year provide coverage to a smaller share of
employees and require them to contribute about 40% toward premiums on average.
Fewer low-wage workers take up employer health benefits as a result.
No comments:
Post a Comment