Part three of The health Care Crisis

Premiums for employer-based health insurance rose by 6.1 percent in 2007. Small employers saw their premiums, on average, increase 5.5 percent. Firms with less than 24 workers, experienced an increase of 6.8 percent.

The annual premium that a health insurer charges an employer for a health plan covering a family of four averaged $12,100 in 2007. The annual premiums for family coverage significantly eclipsed the gross earnings for a full-time, minimum wage worker ($10,712).

Workers are now paying $1400 more in premiums annually for family coverage than they did in 2000.

Since 2000, employment-based health insurance premiums have increased 100 percent, compared to cumulative inflation of 24 percent and cumulative wage growth of 21 percent during the same period.

Health insurance expenses are the fastest growing cost component for employers. Unless something changes dramatically, health insurance costs will overtake profits by 2000.

According to the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Health Research and Educational Trust, premiums for employer-sponsored health insurance in the United States have been rising four times faster on average than worker's earnings since 2000.

The average employee contribution to company-provided health insurance has increase more than 143 percent since 2000. Average out-of-pocket costs for deductible, co-payments for medications, and co-insurance for physician and hospital visits rose 115 percent during the same period.

The percentage of Americans under age 65 whose family-level out -of-pocket spending for health care, including health insurance, that exceeds $2000 a year rose from 37.3 percent in 1996 to 43.1 percent in 2003-a 16 percent increase.