In the past 10 years, the average premium for job-based health insurance that covers a family has risen 54%, to $20,756. Moreover, the amount of that premium workers pay for family coverage has increased 71%, to $6,015.
During that same decade, the share of workers whose health plans carry deductibles requiring them to pay hundreds or thousands of dollars in out-of-pocket costs before their insurance coverage kicks in has increased from 63% to 82%. The size of the average deductible has grown from $826 to $1,655.
At the same time, income hasn’t kept pace. From 2009 to 2019, earnings have gone up just 26%.
Given that employment is the single-largest source of health coverage in the United States, the increases go a long way toward explaining why Americans are so fed up with the current health care system.
U.S. workers and their families with employer-based insurance are paying more and more each year for their health coverage and for out-of-pocket costs, which is consuming a bigger share of their income.
These trends date back even further than the past 10 years, and costs have been rising steadily and outpacing workers’ incomes for decades, previous Kaiser Family Foundation surveys have found.
This year, the average family coverage plan employers offered cost 5% more than in 2018, compared to a 3.4% increase in workers’ earnings. That year-over-year change may appear less troublesome than the longer-term findings, but these relatively small increases in premiums for job-based health insurance have added up over time and have increasingly burdened workers.
In spite of these phenomena, voters may not appear eager to scrap the private insurance system, as Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) have urged on the presidential campaign trail, according to a separate Kaiser Family Foundation survey conducted this month.
Although 53% of Americans say they view Medicarefor All favorably, 69% have favorable views of proposals that retain the private health insurance system and implement other health care reforms, such as a government-run public option program that would compete with private plans.
Democratic voters strongly support both policies, with 77% backing Medicare for All and 87% favorably viewing a public option.
Although this poll and others suggest Democratic voters’ views are fluid, these findings suggest more may be sympathetic to the comparatively moderate approach that former Vice President Joe Biden and several other Democrats seeking the White House have proposed.
The same survey also found that 41% of Republicans support a public option and 20% favor Medicare for All. Among independent voters, 53% support Medicare for All and 73% support a public option.
Former President Theodore Roosevelt champions national health insurance as he unsuccessfully tries to ride his progressive Bull Moose Party back to the White House. (Photo by Topical Press Agency/Getty Images)
1935
President Franklin D. Roosevelt favors creating national health insurance amid the Great Depression but decides to push for Social Security first. (Photo by Keystone/Getty Images)
1942
Roosevelt establishes wage and price controls during World War II. Businesses can't attract workers with higher pay so they compete through added benefits, including health insurance, which grows into a workplace perk. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
1945
President Harry Truman calls on Congress to create a national insurance program for those who pay voluntary fees. The American Medical Association denounces the idea as "socialized medicine" and it goes nowhere. (Photo by Keystone/Getty Images)
1960
John F. Kennedy makes health care a major campaign issue but as president can't get a plan for the elderly through Congress. (Photo by Keystone/Getty Images)
1965
President Lyndon B. Johnson's legendary arm-twisting and a Congress dominated by his fellow Democrats lead to creation of two landmark government health programs: Medicare for the elderly and Medicaid for the poor. (AFP/AFP/Getty Images)
1974
President Richard Nixon wants to require employers to cover their workers and create federal subsidies to help everyone else buy private insurance. The Watergate scandal intervenes. (Photo by Keystone/Getty Images)
1976
President Jimmy Carter pushes a mandatory national health plan, but economic recession helps push it aside. (Photo by Central Press/Getty Images)
1986
President Ronald Reagan signs COBRA, a requirement that employers let former workers stay on the company health plan for 18 months after leaving a job, with workers bearing the cost. (MIKE SARGENT/AFP/Getty Images)
1988
Congress expands Medicare by adding a prescription drug benefit and catastrophic care coverage. It doesn't last long. Barraged by protests from older Americans upset about paying a tax to finance the additional coverage, Congress repeals the law the next year. (TIM SLOAN/AFP/Getty Images)
1993
President Bill Clinton puts first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton in charge of developing what becomes a 1,300-page plan for universal coverage. It requires businesses to cover their workers and mandates that everyone have health insurance. The plan meets Republican opposition, divides Democrats and comes under a firestorm of lobbying from businesses and the health care industry. It dies in the Senate. (PAUL J. RICHARDS/AFP/Getty Images)
1997
Clinton signs bipartisan legislation creating a state-federal program to provide coverage for millions of children in families of modest means whose incomes are too high to qualify for Medicaid. (JAMAL A. WILSON/AFP/Getty Images)
2003
President George W. Bush persuades Congress to add prescription drug coverage to Medicare in a major expansion of the program for older people. (STEPHEN JAFFE/AFP/Getty Images)
2008
Hillary Rodham Clinton promotes a sweeping health care plan in her bid for the Democratic presidential nomination. She loses to Obama, who has a less comprehensive plan. (PAUL RICHARDS/AFP/Getty Images)
2009
President Barack Obama and the Democratic-controlled Congress spend an intense year ironing out legislation to require most companies to cover their workers; mandate that everyone have coverage or pay a fine; require insurance companies to accept all comers, regardless of any pre-existing conditions; and assist people who can't afford insurance. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)
2010
With no Republican support, Congress passes the measure, designed to extend health care coverage to more than 30 million uninsured people. Republican opponents scorned the law as "Obamacare." (Mark Wilson/Getty Images)
2012
On a campaign tour in the Midwest, Obama himself embraces the term "Obamacare" and says the law shows "I do care." (BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP/Getty Images)
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