Nationally, family premiums for employer-sponsored health insurance increased 119 percent between 1999 and 2008, and they could increase another 94 percent by 2020 if the current pace of cost growth continues, according to a new Commonwealth Fund analysis.
The new data brief, Paying the Price: How Health Insurance Premiums Are Eating Up Middle-Class Incomes, finds that the increase in employer-based premiums for family coverage from 2003 to 2008 averaged 33 percent, ranging from a high of 45 percent in Indiana and North Carolina to an average low of 25 percent in Michigan, Texas, and Ohio. By 2008, average family premium costs were highest in Indiana, Massachusetts, Minnesota, and New Hampshire—topping out at more than $13,500. Idaho, Iowa, and Hawaii had the lowest average family premiums, around $11,000.