Annual premiums for family coverage under employer-sponsored health plans rose an average of 3 percent this year, slightly less than last year's 4 percent increase, continuing a slowdown in rate increases over the last 15 years, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation/Health Research and Educational Trust 2016 Employer Health Benefits Survey.
One driver of the slowdown in rate increases is the shift of workers into high-deductible plans, which have lower premiums but higher out-of-pocket costs for employees. This year, 29 percent of all workers are in high-deductible plans, up from 17 percent five years ago, the survey said.
"I think it's the biggest change in American health care that we are not really debating," Kaiser chief executive Drew Altman said.
The average deductible this year for single coverage is $1,478, up from $1,318 last year.
The relatively modest increase in employer-sponsored insurance, which covers 150 million people nationwide, stands in sharp contrast to the volatility in premiums for plans being offered for next year on Affordable Care Act exchanges.
The key difference is that premiums for employee-sponsored insurance are for a stable market, said Gary Claxton, a Kaiser vice president and director of the Health Care Marketplace Project.
On the ACA exchanges, "it's primarily about getting prices right because prior prices were not correct," Claxton said. Many insurers assumed that people on the exchanges would be about as healthy as people in the small-employer market, but that was not the case, he said.
"This year has been a time of correction," Claxton said, and if enrollment through the exchanges continues to grow modestly, "there is no reason why large premium increases should continue."
