Workers paying more for coverage
Molly Selvin and Daniel Costello
Los Angeles Times
The cost of employer-sponsored health insurance continues to outstrip inflation and wages, rising 6.1% this year, according to a closely watched annual report. And workers are bearing more of the burden.
The rate of increase is slower than in previous years, but since 2000, the share paid by the average U.S. worker has doubled. Moreover, the average total cost of healthcare premiums for a family of four, including the share paid by employers, now exceeds the amount a minimum wage worker earns in a year.
The slowdown in premium increases continues a four-year trend, according to the employer survey released Tuesday by the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Health Research and Educational Trust. The slowing represents a rare bit of good news in an otherwise "fraying" employer-based healthcare system, said Drew Altman, president of the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonprofit research group in Menlo Park, Calif., that produced the report.
But to Glenn Melnick, a Rand Corp. economist and a USC professor of healthcare finance, "the news looks rosier than it really is."
September 12, 2007 at 12:00 AM | Permalink | Blog Reactions
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