Study: Cost of health insurance for families in U.S. up sharply

The cost of employer-provided health insurance for American families jumped nine percent in 2011, according to a national survey conducted by the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Health Research & Educational Trust, The Los Angeles Times reports.

Annual insurance premiums for families averaged $15,073 in 2011, up from $13,770 in 2010. Employers are paying $10,944 on average to cover workers and their dependents, and employees are paying $4,129.

From the Times:

Employee contributions to their health benefits have grown 168% since 1999, more than three times the rate of earnings and more than four times the rate of overall inflation, the data show.

That’s significant because employer-sponsored health insurance is the leading source of health coverage in the United States, providing about 150 million people with benefits.

“A big premium jump is especially tough for workers and employers when they’re facing a faltering recovery, but it’s really tough for workers when wages are declining in real terms,” Drew Altman, president of the Kaiser Foundation, told the paper. “The pain factor is pretty high right now.”

According to the Times, insurers say that Americans with employee-sponsored insurance are putting off medical care to avoid bills. In addition, people are enrolling in policies with lower annual premiums but higher deductibles. In 2011, 31 percent of workers had health plans with deductibles of at least $1,000, up 10 percent from 2006.

Meanwhile, the New York Times reports that there is some debate about how much the new federal health care law is affecting rates, "with some analysts suggesting that insurers have raised prices in anticipation of new rules that would, in 2012, require them to justify any increase of more than 10 percent."

In addition to increases caused by insurers getting ahead of potential costs, some of the law’s provisions that are already in effect — like coverage for adult children up to 26 years of age and prevention services like mammogram screening — have contributed to higher expenses for some employers.

In a post on the White House blog, Assistant to the President and Deputy Chief of Staff Nancy-Ann DeParle, responded to the Kaiser report, and argued that while premiums rose in 2011, 2012 could be different.

"The data released by Kaiser cover 2011, but signs indicate that premium growth will slow significantly in 2012," DeParle wrote. "On September 20th, Mercer, a well-known independent benefits consulting firm released a survey of employers showing that their health insurance cost increases will average 5.4 percent for 2012, the smallest increase it has measured since 1997."