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U.S. Workers Face Rising Health Insurance Costs
Confirmed
In Short: According to KFF’s 2026 Employer Health Benefits Survey, U.S. workers are once again facing rising health insurance costs.
The KFF survey, published on Oct. 22, highlights a persistent trend of increasing health insurance costs for U.S. workers, continuing a pattern that has lasted for decades.
The National Alliance’s Pulse of the Purchaser 2026 Survey Results, published in August, revealed that 83% of respondents reported their health insurance premiums cutting into wages paid to employees.
In New Jersey, the situation is particularly dire, with local government worker premiums rising 115% over the past five years and school employee premiums climbing nearly 74%.
Protect Our Care reported that around 8 million Americans have lost coverage since Republicans in Congress passed a sweeping spending bill in Trump’s second term, which made the largest cuts to health care in history, slashing over $1 trillion from Medicaid and the ACA.
The consequences of these cuts are severe, with over 1,250 hospitals, clinics, nursing homes, and other critical providers closing, cutting essential services, or being at risk of doing so.
As layoffs pile up, workers are increasingly anxious about the job market, with some companies like Intel expecting significant layoffs.
Community pharmacists, who are among the most accessible health professionals in Australia, face a critical period as the Canadian International Pharmacy Association prepares for a potential shutdown.
A hidden hormone disorder may be driving millions of cases of high blood pressure, and a wearable device is revealing what standard tests miss.
Tens of millions of adults are turning to over-the-counter dietary supplements to manage joint stiffness and osteoarthritis-related discomfort, but research suggests that some supplements, like glucosamine, may accelerate neurodegenerative damage.
Celebrities and public figures have brought menopause and perimenopause into the national conversation, and workers around the country are pushing for better workplace support.
Rhode Island was the first state to require employers to reasonably accommodate menopause-related conditions.
The study found that emergency department visits related to mental health and substance use disorders increased in frequency after the right-to-counsel program rolled out.
What this adds
The rising costs and cuts to health care have had a ripple effect on various aspects of health care, including mental health and substance use disorders, and have led to increased advocacy for better workplace support and accommodations.
What's confirmed
- The KFF survey, published on Oct. 22, highlights a persistent trend of increasing health insurance costs for U.S. workers, continuing a pattern that has lasted for decades.
- The National Alliance’s Pulse of the Purchaser 2026 Survey Results, published in August, revealed that 83% of respondents reported their health insurance premiums cutting into wages paid to employees.
- In New Jersey, the situation is particularly dire, with local government worker premiums rising 115% over the past five years and school employee premiums climbing nearly 74%.
- Protect Our Care reported that around 8 million Americans have lost coverage since Republicans in Congress passed a sweeping spending bill in Trump’s second term, which made the largest cuts to health care in history, slashing over $1 trillion from Medicaid and the ACA.
- The consequences of these cuts are severe, with over 1,250 hospitals, clinics, nursing homes, and other critical providers closing, cutting essential services, or being at risk of doing so.
- As layoffs pile up, workers are increasingly anxious about the job market, with some companies like Intel expecting significant layoffs.
- Community pharmacists, who are among the most accessible health professionals in Australia, face a critical period as the Canadian International Pharmacy Association prepares for a potential shutdown.
- A hidden hormone disorder may be driving millions of cases of high blood pressure, and a wearable device is revealing what standard tests miss.
- Tens of millions of adults are turning to over-the-counter dietary supplements to manage joint stiffness and osteoarthritis-related discomfort, but research suggests that some supplements, like glucosamine, may accelerate neurodegenerative damage.
- Celebrities and public figures have brought menopause and perimenopause into the national conversation, and workers around the country are pushing for better workplace support.
- Rhode Island was the first state to require employers to reasonably accommodate menopause-related conditions.
- The study found that emergency department visits related to mental health and substance use disorders increased in frequency after the right-to-counsel program rolled out.
What's still developing
- On Aug. 19, AHCJ hosted a webinar with Herman, Covering health care affordability, a big story with major impact, in which he explained what he uncovered in the first four parts of the series.
- Recognizing the best health reporting in print, broadcast and online media since 2004.
- Aderhold and Eric Crespo | May 25, 2026 | Opinion, Healthcare A slow-moving fiscal catastrophe is unfolding in New Jersey, devastating school districts, strangling municipal budgets, squeezing county governments and leaving public employees and retirees facing unaffordable health care costs.
- Malaysia, meanwhile, has reported rising cases of asthma and conjunctivitis amid worsening air quality nationwide as smoke continues to drift across the border.
- Millions of people across large swathes of South East Asia have been exposed to the smog, which in some areas has fuelled "acutely unhealthy" pollution more than 15 times the World Health Organization's recommended level.
- Last year, CEO Lip-Bu Tan said Intel expected to end 2025 with 75,000 “core” workers, excluding subsidiaries, through layoffs and attrition.
- “The information we have is there’s going to be a complete shutdown on Oct. 22,” Tim Smith, general manager of the Canadian International Pharmacy Association, said in an interview in early October.
- Peter Breadon: Well, you said in your introduction how vital this part of the health system is.
- Researchers studied the electronic health record data of more than 65,000 patients and analyzed post-mortem human brain tissue, and controlled animal models, to find that glucosamine crosses the blood-brain barrier and can go on to feed into a hyperactive “sugar tagging” system, which coats brain proteins with extra glycans, and which accelerates neurodegenerative damage.
- Storytellers in Nine States Joined The First Two Weeks of Protect Our Care’s “Sick of It. Fix Health Care Now” Bus Tour Trump and Republicans in Congress ignited a health care crisis and working families are sick of it!
- After ransacking over $1 trillion from Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act to bankroll tax breaks for billionaires and big corporations, Republicans then ripped away the tax credits that over 22 million Americans relied on for affordable coverage.
- (Source: FOX news): The General Services Administration says it has identified approximately $1.22 billion in suspected fraud involving five COVID-era contracts administered through the Department of Health and Human Services.