People who get their health insurance through their employers will see higher premiums next year:
Employer-sponsored health insurance plans are poised to get more expensive next year.
Insurance broker Aon projected they’ll rise 9.5% to average more than $19,000 per employee. Companies typically shoulder about 80% of that burden, but workers will likely pay more, too [Nova Safo, “Health Plans Will Cost More in 2027, for Employers and Workers,” Marketplace, 2026.08.24].
Premium hikes will be worse for small businesses:
Small businesses that offer health insurance to their employees could see health costs rise in 2027, according to an analysis of preliminary rate filings from all 50 states and DC. Nearly 300 insurers offering small group coverage reported a median proposed premium increase of 14% for next year [Kaiser Family Foundation, “How Much and Why Premiums Are Going Up for Small Businesses in 2027,” 2026.08.06].
…and for individuals buying plans under the Affordable Care Act:
ACA marketplace insurers are proposing a median rate increase of 15% for 2027, the second consecutive year of double-digit premium hikes, according to a Peterson-KFF Health System Tracker analysis. For context, the median finalized ACA rate change last year was 20% [Jakob Emerson, “5 Forces Driving Up Health Insurance Costs in 2027,” Becker’s Payer Issues, 2026.08.17].
ACA plans are going up not because government health insurance doesn’t work but because this government is choosing not to make it work:
Federal policy shifts were also factors. Insurers more specifically attributed rising rates to the expiration of enhanced premium tax credits and greater morbidity in risk pools. As the expiration prompted an enrollment dip, healthier enrollees were more likely to let go of coverage. After subsidies, premium payments increased 58% on average in 2026 [Elizabeth Casolo, “ACA Insurers Propose 15% Premium Bump for 2027: 6 Notes,” Becker’s Payer Issues,2026.08.04].
As has been the case for since before Dennis Kucinich explained to me that universal health insurance saves money and saves lives, countries that choose to make government health insurance available for everybody spend a lot less of their personal and national wealth on health care [click the following charts to embiggen!]:
Folks in countries that cover health care primarily through tax dollars rather than through America’s hodgepodge insurance system generally live longer:
…and die less frequently of avoidable and preventable causes:
Socialized medicine doesn’t hamper other countries’ ability to make primary care providers available:
My fellow Americans, the solution to your high health insurance premiums is staring you in the face from all over the world. But your government continues to do the opposite of that solution:
Findings from this international comparison highlight a persistent failure of the U.S. health system: Americans pay more for health care, get less in return, and remain far more exposed to illness, debt, and insecurity than their peers. Recently enacted and proposed federal policies fail to address this contradiction head on. Instead, they sharpen it, leaving more Americans uninsured and exposed to costs they cannot afford. Over the next several years, it will be important to measure the impact of these policies against progress internationally. Yet comparison alone is insufficient: the U.S. must build a system that delivers care rather than financial ruin.
Other nations have made different choices. What’s remarkable is not that alternatives exist, but that the United States has failed to pursue them Gunja, Gumas, and Williams, 2026.05.28].
Adopt universal health care, or keep going broke and dying.