As you might have imagined, employees are spending more of their household income on health care services and coverage.
Payroll deductions and deductible payments (including copays and coinsurance) together accounted for 11.5% of median household income in 2019. That percentage is up from 9.1% a decade earlier ― an increase of more than 25%.
On average, the employee share of premium amounted to 6.8% of median income in 2019. This is up from 5% in 2010, but it has remained largely constant since 2015. The average spent on deductibles for a middle-income household amounted to 4.7% of income in 2019 ― up from 3.3% in 2010.
How do these trends match up to what you’ve seen with your plan over the past decade?
“Keeping Score” is an ongoing series where we share findings from our work on employer-sponsored health plans, so you have the opportunity to compare how your plan is performing relative to others. We hope you find it beneficial. Because, after all, you can’t manage what you don’t measure.