{"id":308231,"date":"2026-02-24T19:54:10","date_gmt":"2026-02-24T19:54:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/308231\/"},"modified":"2026-02-24T19:54:10","modified_gmt":"2026-02-24T19:54:10","slug":"missouri-kansas-families-pay-nearly-10-of-their-income-on-employer-provided-health-insurance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/308231\/","title":{"rendered":"Missouri, Kansas families pay nearly 10% of their income on employer-provided health insurance"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"InIn 19 states, families were paying 10% or more of median household income toward those health care costs throughout 2024. (Suzanne King\/The Beacon)<\/p>\n

By SUZANNE KING
The Beacon<\/a><\/p>\n

A new report found that nearly 10% of median household income in Missouri and Kansas goes toward deductibles and premiums. At that level, economists say those households are underinsured.<\/p>\n

Health care costs are rising in Missouri and Kansas, especially for workers who get coverage through their employers.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In both states, families who get their health care through work are paying nearly 10% of their annual income toward health insurance premiums and deductibles, a new\u00a0report<\/a>\u00a0from the Commonwealth Fund found.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In Missouri, the cost of premiums and deductibles combined ate up 9.6% of a family\u2019s household income when they were enrolled in health insurance through their employer in 2024. In Kansas, 9.9% of household income went toward premiums and deductible costs, the report found.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat does affordable mean?\u201d said Timothy McBride, a professor and health economist at Washington University in St. Louis. \u201cWe don\u2019t have a real clear answer for that, but 10% (of household income) gets kicked around a lot.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s pretty mind-boggling when health care costs are hitting it across most of the country,\u201d McBride said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In 19 states, families were paying 10% or more of median household income toward those health care costs throughout 2024.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"<br>\"\/<\/p>\n

For individuals enrolled in health care through their employers, 26 states, including Kansas and Missouri, saw employees paying 5% or more of their annual income toward out-of-pocket health care costs.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In Missouri, deductibles for single coverage were 5.4% of the median household income, while in Kansas, deductibles were 5.5%.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you\u2019re spending 5% of your annual household income on your health insurance deductible, I could see the argument being made that you\u2019re underinsured,\u201d said Linda Sheppard, a senior analyst and strategy team leader at the Kansas Health Institute. \u201cBecause that is just a huge financial burden.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIf your annual plan, and your deductible, is high enough that it\u2019s taking out that much of a chunk of your household income every year, you run the risk of people \u2026 not going to get that service or that care, because I know I\u2019m going to end up having to pay that bill,\u201d Sheppard said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

How do Missouri and Kansas stack up on health insurance affordability<\/p>\n

Even in Missouri and Kansas, where premiums aren\u2019t as high as in other states, residents are sitting right at the threshold of affordability.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Overall, the states are following the trend of increasingly expensive health care across the country, said Kristen Kolb, a research associate at the Commonwealth Fund. And that\u2019s before factoring in the cost employers are paying for that care.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s only a fraction of what the total cost for this coverage is,\u201d Kolb said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In 2024, health care spending in the U.S. reached $5.3 trillion and\u00a0increased 7.2% from 2023<\/a>. That was following a previous increase of 7.4% from 2022 to 2023. Health care spending during those years outpaced overall economic growth \u2014 making up 18% of the share of economic activity in 2024.\u00a0<\/p>\n

That comes after a handful of slow years of spending on health care following the COVID pandemic.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen health care costs are going up that high, you\u2019re going to see it reflected in premiums,\u201d McBride said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

A higher share of patients with chronic disease, increased pharmaceutical spending and a lack of competition throughout the market are major factors driving costs higher.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cHealth care marketplaces and insurers that have less competition tend to have higher costs and premium growth,\u201d McBride said. \u201cIf you have dominant health systems that can charge prices without getting a lot of pushback, that\u2019s not generally that good.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

For the most part, insurers can pass along those rising costs to consumers. In this case, employers are feeling the pinch from all sides as health care costs and spending continue to rise.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

For larger employers, it\u2019s generally easier to try and keep employees from paying those higher costs. Still, as health care costs outpace wage growth, the costs will ultimately get passed along again from employers to employees.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThese costs continue to rise for employees because companies are just trying to share more of their costs,\u201d Sheppard said. \u201cThere aren\u2019t really a whole lot of other options. If you\u2019re the employer, you raise what your employees are paying, and you try to reduce the richness of your benefits or your plan.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re going to see that number continue to edge up of what individuals and families are having to pay out of pocket for their health care,\u201d Sheppard said. \u201cI don\u2019t see that as changing, because the cost of care continues to rise over time.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In 19 states, families were paying 10% or more of median household income toward those health care costs…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":308232,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[163,521,85,46],"class_list":["post-308231","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-healthcare","tag-health","tag-healthcare","tag-il","tag-israel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/308231","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=308231"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/308231\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/308232"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=308231"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=308231"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=308231"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}