
As employers struggle with rising healthcare costs and a sour economy, U.S. workers for the first time in at least a decade are being asked to shoulder the entire increase in the cost of health benefits on their own.
The average worker with a family plan was hit with 14% premium increase this year, pushing the bill to nearly $4,000 a year, according to a survey by the nonprofit Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation and the Health Research and Educational Trust.
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That is the largest annual increase since the survey began in 1999 and a marked change from previous years, when employers generally split the rise in the cost of premiums with their employees.
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