How are you coping with those creeping health care costs?

Once again, folks, yet another premier report shows the cost of health care spiking ever upward.
 
And, in the face of flat-lining salaries following the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression, the report shows America’s employees are paying a bigger and bigger share of these ballooning costs.

A recent report from the Kaiser Family Foundation shows total costs of the average single health care policy this year is $5,049 and, for a family policy, $13,770—an average boost of 5 percent and 3 percent in costs, respectively, over last year. 

More important, American employees are paying a larger share of this cost in their premiums—with federal employees’ specifically finding their FEHBP premiums rising even more—by about 8 percent for FY 2010. (For FY 2011, we have to wait on figures coming soon from OPM.)

“In the findings of the report, the average family contribution in America is $3,997 per year, versus $4,811 per year for a Blue Cross / Blue Shield [FEHBP] standard option policy,” Dan Adcock, legislative director at the National Active and Retired Federal Employees Association, told us. Single-person, private-sector employee health insurance policyholders pay an average of $900 a year as their share, versus the fed counterpart’s bill of $2,100.

Adcock added that the figures are just more evidence that the “spoiled fed” stories going around are “just not true.”

Feds have good healthcare options, and you get what you pay for.

But we’re wondering how those rising premiums (and not-so-little things like rising deductibles) are affecting your bottom line.