Workers’ costs continue to rise, eroding wages

WASHINGTON — American workers’ health insurance premiums and deductibles continued to tick upward in 2018, outpacing wage growth and inflation, according to a new national survey of employers.

The increases extend a longrunning trend that is pinching workers and their families, and fueling widespread anxiety about medical costs.

More than a quarter of all workers with health coverage now have a deductible of at least $2,000 for single coverage, the survey by the nonprofit Kaiser Family Foundation found.

In 2009, by comparison, just 7 percent of covered workers had to pay $2,000 out of pocket before their health coverage kicked in.

“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,” said Drew Altman, president of the foundation. Rising health care costs — particularly for Americans who do not get health coverage from an employer, but buy it on their own — have fueled the Trump administration’s attacks on the Affordable Care Act, often called Obamacare.

In response, the current administration has taken several steps to increase the availability of less comprehensive health plans that don’t offer a full range of benefits.

But the new report underscores that even health plans offered by employers — and not subject to all the benefit mandates in the 2010 health care law — are extremely expensive.

The average cost of a family health plan is now $19,616 a year, with workers contributing $5,547, or about a quarter of the cost. Employers are picking up the balance of the cost of workers’ health benefits.

Health insurance premiums have been rising more modestly than deductibles, a trend that continued in 2018, with the average premium for family coverage rising 5 percent, according to the survey.

But 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.

Employers — particularly small businesses — also frequently cite rising health costs as a reason why they stop offering health benefits.