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The Commonwealth Fund has put together an interesting state-by-state breakdown of private-employer health insurance premiums and deductibles over the past 6 years.
The upshot: premiums for businesses and their employees rose 41 percent, while per-person deductibles jumped 77 percent. (Continue those trends out to 2020, and an average premium for family coverage will be more than $23,000.) The report also looks at the potential for federal health reform to reduce that cost growth.
This chart shows employer premiums as a percentage of median household income for people under age 65:
In Washington state, the cost of premiums rose 38 percent between 2003 and 2009, with family coverage costing an average of $12,758 here last year.
How's that compare to everyone else? About in the middle. In a list of the 50 states plus Washington, D.C., from highest family premiums to lowest, we come in 28th. (The U.S. average premium for family coverage: $13,027.) Arkansas ($10,969) came in with the lowest rates; Massachusetts ($14,723) with the highest. Oregon's ($12,783) are slightly higher than Washington's.