“What you’re seeing is these different markets and the financial pressures being pushed throughout,” said Lucas Nesse, president and chief executive of the Minnesota Council of Health Plans, a trade group for nonprofit health insurers in the state.
The problem might get worse for employers due to future federal reductions in coverage via Medicaid, the state-federal program for lower-income residents.
Nesse said health care providers already are sizing up the Medicaid cuts, which mostly kick in during 2027, and arguing to insurers that they need to make up the difference via even higher reimbursements from employer health plans.
The impact of already high prices, he said, is being magnified by higher use of health care services, pushing overall costs to a new level.
The KFF survey found that, across the country, workers on average are contributing $6,850 this year — about one quarter of the total $26,993 average premium — for family coverage, a similar share to 2024. Employers are paying the rest, an average of $20,143.
The increase in average family premiums this year is slightly lower than the 7% growth rate during each of the past two years. In the early 2000s, employers and workers suffered through a sustained period of low double-digit rate increases, making recent numbers look relatively manageable, said Altman of KFF.
0 Comments