Your family's health insurance now costs as much as 'a new car every year' — even a generous job isn't enough anymore

In 2026, premiums rose by 5% — not an insignificant amount for people already struggling. What’s more, employers are increasingly passing premium costs onto employees, resulting in the premium costs for employees rising by 9%.

“If this is the beginning of a shift of costs on to workers, that would be a big deal in terms of affordability,” said Rae to NPR.

Here’s what’s going on with healthcare costs.

Almost half of insured people are still avoiding getting medical help because of costs

According to KFF, 2026 annual insurance premiums cost almost $10,000 for single coverage, while family coverage cost over $28,000 — both up 5% from last year, outpacing both inflation and workers’ wages.

If you have an employer-sponsored plan, you likely didn’t pay that much. The average employee paid around $1,700 for single coverage and around $7,500 for family coverage — still a significant sum. This represents a 16% and 9% increase in worker-paid costs respectively, according to the Wall Street Journal.

At the same time, health insurance coverage is getting worse. You’ll likely have to deal with high deductibles even if you work for a company that fully or mostly covers rising premium costs.

“Back in the 90’s, our deductibles were $250 or $500 — now they’re $5,000,” said Joseph Babbit, a senior financial controller, to NPR. He works for a company that covers most premiums for employees. “We are the only country on our planet that forces people into bankruptcy because they get sick.”

Almost half of working-age adults in 2026 had inadequate insurance coverage, whether that’s because they’re uninsured, had a coverage gap, or were underinsured. People counted as underinsured if their out of pocket costs sans premiums were 10% or more of household income, or if their deductible was 5% or more of household income.

It’s perhaps unsurprising, then, that 50% of working adults in America avoided accessing needed healthcare because of concerns about cost. Among insured Americans, that number only dropped to 43%.