Workers carry burden of rising medical costs

WASHINGTON – American workers saw their out-of-pocket medical costs jump again this year, as the average deductible for an employer-provided health plan surged nearly 9 percent in 2015 to more than $1,000, a major new survey of employers shows.

The annual increase, though lower than in previous years, far outpaced wage growth and overall inflation and marked the continuation of a trend that in just a few years has dramatically shifted health care costs to workers.

Over the past decade, the average deductible that workers must pay for medical care before their insurance kicks in has more than tripled from $303 in 2006 to $1,077 today, according to the report from the nonprofit Kaiser Family Foundation and the Health Research & Educational Trust. That is seven times faster than wages have risen in the same period.

Workers’ wages increased 1.9 percent between April 2014 and April 2015, according to federal data analyzed by the report’s authors. Consumer prices declined 0.2 percent.

Raising deductibles and co-pays has traditionally been a way for employers to keep premiums in check.

And the new report shows that premium growth remained modest in 2015.

An average employer-provided health plan cost workers $1,071 in 2015. That is down nearly 1 percent from 2014, marking the first time that the survey has documented an absolute decline in workers’ share of premiums.

The average family plan cost workers $4,955, up 3 percent from last year.

By comparison, employees’ share of health insurance routinely shot up by double digits in the early 2000s.

Businesses continued to pick up the bulk of the cost of health coverage for their workers, paying more than $5,000 on average for a single plan and more than $12,500 for a family plan.

Employers’ rising health costs are often singled out as a cause for stagnant wage growth in recent years, as businesses have put money into health benefits that might otherwise have gone to workers’ paychecks.

There is also growing evidence that the steep rise in deductibles and other out-of-pocket expenses such as co-pays are preventing workers from benefiting from the overall slowdown in health care cost growth.

A recent report by the Center for American Progress, a left-leaning Washington think tank, showed that employers are largely pocketing savings while passing along higher premiums and out-of-pocket costs to workers.