Employers are leaving a bigger chunk of the bill for care to workers who use their health insurance, and benefits experts see few signs of this trend slowing.
Most companies now offer health coverage that requires employees to pay an annual deductible before insurance kicks in, and the size of that deductible has soared in the past decade, according to a survey released Tuesday by the Kaiser Family Foundation and Health Research & Educational Trust.
The average general deductible for workers with single coverage totaled $1,077 this year, compared to only $303 in 2006. That deductible has climbed nearly seven times faster than wages, on average, over the past five years.
“That has an impact on family budgets,” Kaiser CEO Drew Altman said.
The study also found that 46 percent of workers with single coverage have a deductible of $1,000 or more. That’s up from only 10 percent in 2006. Kaiser’s study didn’t measure family coverage deductibles, which can be more complex, but researchers say they those have grown as well.