:max_bytes(150000):strip_icc()/GettyImages-1546132953-8dced3434f9844cd86621024ac7dfa86.jpg "Your Health Insurance Bill May Surge Again in 2026. Here’s Why Costs Keep Rising")
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KEY TAKEAWAYS
- This year, health insurance costs grew faster than inflation and wages, with many insurers attempting to cover the rising costs of specialty drugs, such as GLP-1s.
- Many employers have indicated they expect to shift more healthcare costs to workers in 2026, as service and prescription drug costs continue to rise.
Health insurance premium rates rose this year, and the growing costs of health services and prescriptions are expected to push up premium rates again next year.
In 2025, family health insurance premiums through employer-sponsored plans rose by 6%, or $1,408, from last year, according to a recent report from KFF, a nonpartisan healthcare research organization. The average worker is paying $6,850 out of their paycheck annually for family coverage. Premiums rose by 7% in both 2023 and 2024.
Employers reported earlier this year that they plan to shift even more health care costs to their workers in 2026. Many employers say this shift is intended to offset increases in health care expenses and the use of high-cost drugs, such as GLP-1s. Experts also say that some actions taken by the Trump administration, such as potential tariffs on prescription drugs and Medicare cuts, could lead to higher medicine prices.
“With GLP-1s, increases in hospital prices, tariffs and other factors, we expect employer premiums to rise more sharply next year,” Drew Altman, president and chief executive officer of KFF, said in a prepared statement. “Employers have nothing new in their arsenal that can address most of the drivers of their cost increases, and that could well result in an increase in deductibles and other forms of employee cost sharing again.”
The increase in 2025 premiums is higher than the general inflation rate of 2.7% and the 4% wage growth experienced during the same time period.
More than a third of firms that provide employer-sponsored coverage say increases in prescription drug prices contributed “a great deal” to the premium increases in the past few years. KFF found that other factors contributing to higher premiums include the coverage of new and more expensive medicines, a higher prevalence of chronic diseases, increased use of health services, and rising hospital costs.
