Health-care heads up
By Lydialyle Gibson
Graphic by Allen Carroll
Workers pay much more than they did nine years ago for health insurance, as do their bosses. A study by the U of C–based National Opinion Research Center found that in 2008, the average family-coverage premium was $12,680, of which employers paid $9,325; single-coverage premiums cost an average of $4,704, of which employers paid $3,983.
Commissioned by the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Health Research & Educational Trust, the annual survey found health-insurance costs have more than doubled for both employers and employees since 1999. Deductibles—which usually don’t include preventive care—are also up: overall the percentage of covered workers with a deductible of $1,000 or more has risen from ten to 18 over the past two years; at firms with 200 or fewer workers, that percentage has increased from 16 to 35. Slightly fewer companies offered benefits to same-sex domestic partners than to opposite-sex partners; nearly half of small firms reported never encountering the issue.