Health insurance deductibles have risen more than six times faster than American workers' average wages since 2010, a Kaiser Family Foundation report says.
"It's a very powerful trend," Drew Altman, chief executive of the health policy research group, told The New York Times.
Eighty percent of workers who have coverage through their employer now pay a deductible. For those employees, deductibles for an individual plan rose from a yearly average of $900 in 2010 to $1,300 this year, the Kaiser analysis found.
The average deductible for workers in small businesses is even higher at $1,800 a year, and one in five workers has a deductible of $2,000 or more, The Times reported.
Many policies sold under the Affordable Care Act through state exchanges rely on high deductibles to keep premiums low, and some businesses increased their deductibles to reduce higher costs associated with the federal health care law, Altman said.
