As has happened every year in recent memory, annual
premiums for employer-sponsored family health care coverage increased according
to the annual Kaiser Family Foundation’s 2011 Employer Health Benefits Survey
released today. This year, annual premiums hit an average of $15,073 – an
increase of 9 percent over last year.
On average, workers pay $4,129 and employers pay $10,944 toward those
annual premiums.
This represents a significantly faster increase than
workers’ wages, which increased about two percent and general inflation, which
increased about three percent. It is a continuation of the trend of the past
ten years during which time family premiums increased 113 percent, compared
with 34 percent for workers’ wages and 27 percent for inflation.
Kaiser President and CEO Drew Altman had this to say
about the survey results on his blog:
“Critics of the national health reform law passed in 2010
like to blame everything but the weather on “Obamacare,” but regardless of how
you feel about the Affordable Care Act, its effect on premiums this year is
modest. Most of the law’s provisions don’t go into effect until
2014. The two biggest changes this year allow young adults up to age 26
to stay on their parents’ insurance policies and require some insurance plans
to cover preventive services at no cost to patients. These are popular
provisions that provide real benefits, and combined they account for about one
to two percentage points of this year’s premium increase.”
And as is to be expected from Kaiser, there were some useful charts to illustrate the findings.
The full survey results are available online at
http://ehbs.kff.org.