The Burden of Health Care Costs for Working Families

Growing concern about the affordability of health care and the cost burden imposed on working families frequently appears in public debate about the next phase of health care reform. In an earlier brief, Penn LDI and United States of Care reviewed national data on rising health care costs and different ways to measure whether health care and coverage are “affordable.” In this second briefof our affordability series, we adapt one of these measures to provide state-level data on the cost burden faced by working families who have employer-sponsored insurance (ESI). While not all working families have ESI, it is the most common form of health insurance in the United States. We examine how this burden varies across states, and how it has changed within states from 2010 to 2016.