Feb 25, 2022 - Health

Workers have to pay more upfront for care

Bob Herman

Illustration of a stack of cash repeated three times, over green shapes and a blue zigzag line. — Illustration: Brendan Lynch/Axios

As employers struggle to tame health care's market power, they have used the tools of less generous coverage — higher deductibles, copays and coinsurance — to offset some of the rising premiums.

Why it matters: Workers are increasingly finding their health insurance doesn't feel like insurance.

By the numbers: The average single worker's deductible has tripled since 2006, and 30% of all companies now have annual deductibles of $2,000 or more, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation.

The average deductible for individual workers was almost $1,700 in 2021, according to KFF.
More than half of working families in high-deductible plans had deductibles of at least $5,000.
Federal law now outlaws most types of surprise bills, but workers could still face huge and unexpected costs depending on their network of hospitals and doctors.

Worth noting: Employees who face the highest out-of-pocket medical costs are those who work in industries that often don't offer insurance like food service, retail and hospitality.

Those industries disproportionately employ Black and Hispanic workers, and those workers are most vulnerable to being exposed to COVID-19.

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Workers have to pay more upfront for care

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