Health Insurance: Almost 25 Million U.S. Workers Now Have High Deductible plans

The number of American
workers with high-deductible health
insurance plans rose by 3.2 percent
in 2016 -- reaching 24.8 million, new
research reports.
While premium prices rose modestly for people with
employer-provided coverage, their deductibles rose 10
percent on average, University of Minnesota researchers
found.
"High-deductible health plans are increasingly becoming the
norm in commercial insurance, and there is every reason to
expect this trend to continue," said Katherine Hempstead,
senior advisor at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The
foundation funded the study.
For the study, researchers analyzed national data and found
more than 58 million American workers were enrolled in an
employer-sponsored insurance plan in 2016.
The average deductible was $1,696 for single plans, a 10.1
percent increase from 2015. The increases averaged $155,
the study determined.
Premiums for individual coverage, on the other hand, rose 2
percent ($138) in that time period. However, premiums for
individual coverage had already climbed 13 percent from 2012
to 2016, the researchers pointed out.
A high-deductible plan was defined as one with a minimum
annual deductible of $1,300 for an individual and $2,600 for a
family.
There were significant differences between states. Fourteen
states had statistically significant increases in average
deductibles for single plans between 2015 and 2016, ranging
from $306 to nearly $600. No state had significant declines.
Average deductibles for single plans ranged from a low of
$988 in Hawaii to a high of $2,434 in New Hampshire. New
Hampshire also had the highest percentage of workers
enrolled in high-deductible health plans (69 percent) while
Hawaii had the lowest (about 12 percent).
"Deductibles rose considerably faster than premiums, and the
share of health care spending made directly by consumers
will continue to grow," Hempstead said in a Robert Wood
Johnson news release.