In 2015, 25 percent of working-age adults who are privately insured had high healthcare cost burdens relative to their incomes. When looking specifically at adults with low incomes, that percentage doubles, with more than half experiencing high cost burdens, according to the results of the latest Health Care Affordability Tracking Survey from The Commonwealth Fund.
The majority of those surveyed had employer-sponsored coverage, but the sample also includes people with individual coverage, according to the issue brief. Among those surveyed, 61 percent had been insured continuously with private coverage for the past 12 months, which was up from 56 percent just one year earlier. Still, many adults either had premiums, deductibles or out-of-pocket costs that were unaffordable as measured by Affordability Index threshold levels. Brief