The average cost of health coverage for an employer-provided family plan rose to $18,142 in 2016, up 3 percent from the previous year's $17,545 annual premium cost. Employees paid 30 percent of the premiums this year, The Wall Street Journal reports, up from 29 percent in 2015.
Analysts said that this slow growth in coverage costs was partly the result of companies continuing to shift workers into high-deductible plans, a strategy that typically keeps premium costs low. This year 29 percent of covered workers had health plans with higher deductibles, up from 24 percent last year. And in a historic first, more than half of covered workers had a $1,000 deductible for a single-person plan this year; the share of covered workers paying that much was just 46 percent last year.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
-
July 30 editorial cartoonsCartoons Wednesday’s political cartoons include a beast under the surface, new unemployment officers, and more
-
The Miami Showband massacre, 50 years onThe Explainer Unanswered questions remain over Troubles terror attack that killed three members of one of Ireland's most popular music acts
-
Tea app hack: user data stolen from women's dating safety appIn The Spotlight Data leak has led to fears users could be targeted by men angered by the app's premise
-
Samsung to make Tesla chips in $16.5B dealSpeed Read Tesla has signed a deal to get its next-generation chips from Samsung
-
FCC greenlights $8B Paramount-Skydance mergerSpeed Read The Federal Communications Commission will allow Paramount to merge with the Hollywood studio Skydance
-
Tesla reports plummeting profitsSpeed Read The company may soon face more problems with the expiration of federal electric vehicle tax credits
-
Dollar faces historic slump as stocks hit new highSpeed Read While stocks have recovered post-Trump tariffs, the dollar has weakened more than 10% this year
-
Economists fear US inflation data less reliablespeed read The Labor Department is collecting less data for its consumer price index due to staffing shortages
-
Crypto firm Coinbase hacked, faces SEC scrutinySpeed Read The Securities and Exchange Commission has also been investigating whether Coinbase misstated its user numbers in past disclosures
-
Starbucks baristas strike over dress codespeed read The new uniform 'puts the burden on baristas' to buy new clothes, said a Starbucks Workers United union delegate
-
Warren Buffet announces surprise retirementspeed read At the annual meeting of Berkshire Hathaway, the billionaire investor named Vice Chairman Greg Abel his replacement
