The Great Cost Shift: Why middle-class workers do not feel the health care spending slowdown

  In recent years, the growth in overall health care costs has slowed dramatically. But for millions of Americans with employer-sponsored insurance, or ESI, this slowdown is illusory. From 2008 through 2013, the average annual growth rate of employees’ monthly premium contributions and out-of-pocket expenses, adjusted for inflation, was more than double that of average annual growth in real per-capita national health care spending, which was less than 2 percent per year. This growth has also outpaced employers’ costs of offering these benefits by more than 40 percent.

  Employees experiencing higher health care costs tend to blame the Affordable Care Act, or ACA, even though the law largely leaves the employer-based system alone. In fact, many employers report that the ACA has had only a negligible influence on their health care costs.