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Saturday, September 13, 2014

Employer Health Plan Deductibles Jumped Almost 50% Since 2009

Remember, Obamacare was supposed to bend the curve down and save everyone money

(USA Today) A report out today puts numbers behind what hit many workers when they signed up for health insurance during open enrollment last year: deductible shock.

Premiums for employer-paid insurance are up 3% this year, but deductibles are up nearly 50% since 2009, the report by the Kaiser Family Foundation shows.

The average deductible this year is $1,217, up from $826 five years ago. Nearly 20% of workers overall have to pay at least $2,000 before their insurance kicks in, while workers at firms with 199 or fewer employees are feeling the pain of out-of-pocket costs even more: A third of these employees at small companies pay at least $2,000 deductibles. (snip)

Deductibles will keep going up as companies try to keep their own health care costs down by raising the amount of cost-sharing workers have to bear, says Gary Claxton, a Kaiser Family Foundation vice president who co-authored the annual study.

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3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I do benefits administration.
The simple truth is:
Employers are not paying more, it is all falling on the backs of employees.
My employer has been paying the same for the last several years, despite increases.
How this is done, is costs are shifted to the employee and they are in fact paying more than the employers is at this point.
By making the employee pay a higher percentage of premium, higher deductibles and higher copays.
The most utterly ridiculous fact in all of this, it is simply a waste of everyone's money.
Everyone spends money on a plan that is useless since, in our company, we are paid such low wages, no one can afford to go to the doctor, because of the high deductible.
The only one winning here is the insurance company

Anonymous said...

Another example of the, Unaffordable Health Care Act.

Anonymous said...

ours is 2,500 a year. and that is private insurance.