Every fall, KFF publishes perhaps the authoritative account of commercial group-coverage price growth with its Employer Health Benefits Survey. Its lookback on 2025 found that family premiums grew by over 6 percent this year, with employers contributing over $20K to annual family premiums, which now total nearly $27K. That equates to an astounding 32 percent of median household income. 
 
It didn’t use to be like this. Since 2010, employer premium contributions have more than doubled and worker contributions have increased 71 percent, whereas the Consumer Price Index has only risen 48 percent and household income just 22 percent in that time. The result of health insurance costs outpacing inflation growth for so many years is the suppression of profit margins for businesses and wages for workers, putting American firms at a competitive disadvantage to companies abroad. Americans say that “costs” are the most urgent health problem facing this country, so it’s no coincidence that opinions on the state of US healthcare coverage are at a fifteen-year low. With each successive year, we ask the question with new urgency, when will employers reach their breaking point?