Family health insurance premiums climbed to $28,303 this year, and workers are paying more in dollar terms — an average of $7,471 annually, a jump of $621, or 9%, from 2025. Rising premiums and deductibles are forcing some workers to forgo treatments and doctor visits while household budgets are strained, and the number of uninsured Americans is rising as more people face unpaid medical bills.
Premiums Outpacing Wages and Inflation
The $28,303 figure for employer-sponsored family coverage is 5% higher than in 2025, according to the 2026 KFF Employer Health Benefits Survey, which included 1,937 interviews with non-federal public and private firms. The average family-premium contribution rate was 27%, similar to 2025, although workers' dollar contributions rose. Health care costs are now tied with gas prices as a top cost-of-living concern, KFF president and chief executive Drew Altman said, as reported by The New York Times. Wages rose just 3.7% over the same period, while inflation ran at 2.7%, per the survey.
More than 150 million Americans get insurance through their jobs, and work-based plans are adding financial pressure across that population, according to the same KFF survey reported by KFF Health News. Employers have increased health plan deductibles to offset premium increases, and the average deductible for covered workers with a general annual deductible reached $1,955 for single coverage this year. Among large firms, 44% reported increasing the share of the premium that workers contribute as their most common cost-control move, while 18% of all firms raised workers' premium share and 4% increased deductibles or other cost sharing for most services.
Small-Firm Workers Hit Hardest
Workers at small companies — defined as those with fewer than 200 employees — pay an average of $9,687 yearly for family coverage, compared with $6,840 at larger firms. The contribution rate for family coverage averages 37% at smaller firms versus 25% at larger ones, and 32% of covered workers at smaller firms must pay more than half of their family premium, compared with just 6% at larger firms, per the KFF survey. Twenty-nine percent of surveyed companies said covering GLP-1 weight-loss drugs had a significant effect on their drug costs.
Debt and Delayed Care Mount Even Among the Insured
Two surveys show millions of people in the United States are struggling with rising medical costs even when they have coverage. Nearly one in three working-age adults with private insurance — 32% — are paying off medical bills or debt over time, according to a Commonwealth Fund study, and among those with medical debt, 37% used all or part of their savings to pay their bills. The share of working-age adults who did not get needed care because of cost rose from 46% in 2022 to 50% this year, according to the same Commonwealth Fund findings as reported by AJMC.
Uninsured Rate Remains High
The uninsured rate among working-age adults was 11.2% in 2026, compared with 11.3% in 2024, per the Times account.
President Trump and Republican lawmakers declined to extend pandemic-era subsidies for Obamacare insurance, and an estimated nearly five million people have dropped individual insurance policies as a result. Medicaid coverage has also declined.
Employer Health Cost Forecasts
The Business Group on Health forecast a 9% increase for 2026, per the same KFF Health News report cited earlier.
Roughly six in 10 U.S. adults say they are very or somewhat worried about affording care, and Americans rank health care near or at the top of their financial concerns ahead of the midterm elections, according to a KFF poll. Medicaid disenrollment has contributed to rising uninsured numbers.
