KFF survey shows employer health care is corporate extraction
By Josie Calloway · Reporting from Pittsburgh ·
Soaring premiums and steep deductibles trap insured workers in financial strain, proving that employer-sponsored health care is failing working families by design.
The car-payment premium draining the paycheck
About 157 million Americans get their health insurance through a job. That sounds like security until the annual enrollment packet lands on the kitchen table. According to a KFF survey reported by NPR, the average family health insurance premium is now $28,000. Matthew Rae, associate director for the Health Care Marketplace Program at KFF, notes in reporting by CNN and NPR that this price tag is essentially the cost of a new car every year just to keep a family insured. Workers pay about $7,000 of that total, and employers pay the remainder.
Drivers of these elevated costs include increased use of health services, expensive treatments for cancer, and demand for obesity medications. At the University Club of Michigan State University, workers experienced premium hikes and a doubling of their deductible. Debbie Barosko, human resources director there, is weighing bad options as costs climb. It is hard to stomach for employees when premiums increase while benefits are diluted.
Stripping benefits while the sick pay the price
The Managed Care Backlash of the 1990s taught us exactly how this mechanism works. Insurance companies and corporate employers shift costs to patients through higher deductibles and restrictive care management to protect corporate profits. Joseph Babbitt, senior financial controller for West Plains Veterinary Supply in Springfield, Missouri, has watched the trap close over decades. Deductibles that were once $500 are now $5,000. As Joseph Babbitt states, we are the only country on our planet that forces people into bankruptcy because they get sick.
Employers are aggressively shedding coverage to protect their bottom lines. According to the Business Group on Health and reported by CNN, coverage for weight loss drugs fell this year. Cash prices for weight loss drugs like Eli Lilly’s Zepbound and Novo’s Wegovy remain steep depending on medication and dosage. Today, corporations facing projected healthcare cost jumps drop pharmaceutical benefits and push high-cost drugs off traditional insurance schedules onto direct cash-pay models. Employer plans remain deeply vulnerable. Elisabeth Rosenthal, senior contributing editor at KFF Health News and author of An American Sickness, notes in reporting by The Washington Post that rising costs will squeeze staff. Employers will pass those costs onto workers through higher deductibles or limit employee raises.
The choice between medical debt and no care at all
The human cost of this system shows up plainly in data published by the Commonwealth Fund and reported by NPR. In their biennial survey, lead author Sara Collins reports that about 43% of respondents said they did not get health care because of cost over the past year. About 31% reported that they had medical debt. The overall uninsured rate increased due to the expiration of extra federal subsidies for Affordable Care Act plans. Millions also lost Medicaid after the pandemic emergency ended.
The alternative is staring us in the face. Nearly three quarters of people surveyed believe the federal government has a responsibility to ensure all Americans have coverage. When workers are forced to choose between paying for groceries and filling a prescription, the system has failed its primary test. We do not have a healthcare market problem; we have a corporate extraction problem disguised as human resources policy.