Health insurance premiums for families are same price as a new car: survey
Health insurance annual premiums hit an average of $20,576 for employer-sponsored family coverage in 2019, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation's latest survey.
You can buy a new car for the same amount of money.
Families had to pay an average of $6,015 toward the cost of coverage while employers took care of the rest, according to the survey published on Wednesday.
The average annual premiums went up 5% from 2018, compared to a 3.4% jump in workers' wages and 2% jump in inflation.
"The single biggest issue in health care for most Americans is that their health costs are growing much faster than their wages are," KFF president and CEO Drew Altman said. "Costs are prohibitive when workers making $25,000 a year have to shell out $7,000 a year just for their share of family premiums."
In addition, nearly one third of covered workers have a deductible of more than $2,000, which is a fourfold increase from 2009, according to KFF.
The survey comes as many Democratic presidential candidates pitch variants of Medicare-for-all that they say would erase the costs of health care for Americans. For example, Democratic presidential candidate and South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg announced his $1.5 trillion public option health care plan last week.
Calling the plan "Medicare-for-all who want it," Buttigieg said he'd balance the hefty price tag with "cost savings and corporate tax reform to ensure big corporations pay their fair share" in an op-ed in The Washington Post.