Since the 2010 advent of the Affordable Care Act, often known as Obamacare, premiums for employer-sponsored health insurance have risen an average of 5 percent per year.
Compared to the 11 percent annual increase between 1999 and 2005, that's not too bad.
As commentator Paul Harvey used to say, and now for the rest of the story.
Since 2010, both the share of workers who have to pay deductibles and the size of those deductibles have increased sharply. Deductibles, in fact, have increased 67 percent since then, compared to 24 percent for the rise in single premiums, nearly seven times the increase in workers' wages (10 percent) and general inflation (9 percent).
In other words, if the cost of health insurance doesn't get you, the cost of using the insurance will.
"With deductibles rising so much faster than premiums and wages, it's no surprise that consumers have not felt the slowdown in health spending," Kaiser Family Foundation President and CEO Drew Altman said in a news release accompanying the organization's 2015 Employer Health Benefits Survey.
The average deductible for single coverage this year is $1,318, with workers at large employers (200 or more workers) paying $1,105 and workers at smaller firms (3 to 199 employees) paying 66 percent more at $1,836.
However, Affordable Care Act deductibles are significantly higher, according to a HealthPocket study of 2015 costs.
The average deductible for a single person enrolled in the ACA's bronze plan - its cheapest - is $5,181, while the average deductible for a family in the same plan is $10,545. The silver plan is much more affordable but still far more expensive than employer plans, with deductibles at $2,927 for singles and $6,010 for families.
The survey also shows that, due to the Affordable Care Act, 5 percent of large employers (200 or more workers) reported that they intend to reduce the number of full-time employees they intend to hire because of the cost of providing health care benefits, and a small percentage of employers are already taking action to lower their health plan costs because of the ACA's high-cost plan tax - often called the Cadillac Tax - that will be implemented in 2018.
As employees enroll or re-enroll in company health insurance plans this time of year, and with a presidential election just a year away, they should remember what the president's ill-advised health care plan has cost them.