(Radio Iowa) -The cost of employer-sponsored health insurance premiums dropped slightly for Iowa families and individuals from 2023 to 2024, according to a report from the State Health Access Data Assistance Center, or SHADAC, at the University of Minnesota. Premium costs rose nationally over those years. SHADAC research fellow Andrea Stewart says the percentage of Iowans who are on employer-sponsored high deductible plans is 52 percent, which also fell.

“Iowa has traditionally seen significantly higher enrollment in high deductible health plans,” Stewart says. “That number was 62% in 2023. It was an average of about 64% in 2022.” Stewart says the average family deductible has been slowly rising. “Iowa has crossed over that $4,000 mark again, five times in the last six years,” she says, “so that’s certainly a cost impact for anybody enrolled in an employer-sponsored insurance.”

Stewart says Iowa was one of 33 states in 2024 where more than 50 percent of workers were enrolled in high-deductible employer plans.