While Premiums Soar Under Obamacare, Costs of Employer-Based Plans Are Stable
In sharp contrast to the soaring health insurance premiums in many Affordable Care Act marketplaces, the cost of coverage for the vast numbers of people who get insurance through their jobs rose relatively little this year, continuing a period of remarkable stability in the employer market, according to a national survey released Tuesday.

In sharp contrast to the soaring health insurance premiums in many Affordable Care Act marketplaces, the cost of coverage for the vast numbers of people who get insurance through their jobs rose relatively little this year, continuing a period of remarkable stability in the employer market, according to a national survey released Tuesday.

The annual premium for family coverage rose an average of 3 percent to $18,764 this year, according the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonprofit group, which conducted the annual survey of employers. That is the sixth straight year that employer-provided policies have increased by well under 5 percent, according to the survey. Employers paid the bulk of the costs, the survey found, with workers shouldering an average of $5,714, a year for a family policy.

About 151 million people are covered through an employer, and the insurance environment for many of those companies is characterized by “a remarkable stubborn stability,” said Craig Garthwaite, a health economist at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.

The exception is the smallest companies, which are still finding it challenging to afford insurance for their workers. In recent years, a growing number of smaller companies have stopped providing health benefits, according to the Kaiser data. Over the last five years, the percentage of businesses with under 50 workers offering coverage has fallen from 59 percent to 50 percent. In 2001, two thirds of those employers offered benefits.