Connecting our current healthcare insurance dots in three charts: Insurers are making bigger profits; deductibles are burning a hole in workers’ pockets; and annual family premiums for employer-sponsored health insurance averages nearly $20,000 a year.
Insurers in the individual market performed better financially in the first six months of 2018 than they have in all of the years of since the Affordable Care Act.
Deductibles also continue to burn a deeper hole in workers’ pockets. The average deductible now stands at $1,350, up 212% since 2008. That’s eight times faster than wage growth.
Annual family premiums for employer-sponsored health insurance rose 5 percent to average $19,616 this year. On average, workers this year are contributing $5,547 toward the cost of family coverage, with employers paying the rest. Since 2008, average family premiums have increased 55 percent, twice as fast as workers’ earnings and three times as fast as inflation.
“Health costs don’t rise in a vacuum. As long as out-of-pocket costs for deductibles, drugs, surprise bills and more continue to outpace wage growth, people will be frustrated by their medical bills and see health costs as huge pocketbook and political issues,” KFF President and CEO Drew Altman said.
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