Surging health insurance costs have compelled even healthcare workers to stop getting coverage not only for themselves but also for their staff at private facilities. Premiums climbed 78% between 2011 and 2024, a JAMA study shows.
The spiraling costs affecting ordinary Americans haven’t spared healthcare professionals. KFF News provides the example of Ashley Durham, a pharmacist, and her husband Doctor Joshua Durham. The couple owns and runs a medical practice in Idaho, and the rising health insurance costs have compelled them to drop their own policy this year.
To get the treatment they need, they have been making withdrawals from their HSA (Health Savings Plan) each time a need arises and they are unable to treat themselves at their facility. They have also entered a barter arrangement with a local optometrist so that they can limit their costs on eye care.
The couple says their measures help minimize healthcare costs, but they are constantly on tenterhooks because only one medical emergency could leave them holding a fat medical bill.
The Durhams aren’t alone. Statistics show that 7% of the healthcare workers in America have chosen to drop their health insurance coverage. 2% of the doctors in the country have taken the same decision. Dental assistants, physiotherapists and nursing assistants form the bulk of the healthcare workers that have opted to drop their coverage.
While the percentages may look small, they highlight a growing problem. If the very workers whose duty it is to address the healthcare needs of others are feeling compelled to opt out of having health insurance policies, what does that say about the state of the healthcare sector in the U.S.?
The sticker shock impacting ordinary Americans is also hitting healthcare workers hard. With the ending of the Obamacare subsidies, the blow only got more severe. Data shows that from February 2025 to February 2026, a total of approximately three million individuals exited their health insurance plans.
That number includes healthcare workers, and the effects are likely to get worse as time goes by. Employees and small businesses are feeling the weight of skyrocketing health insurance and lots of health clinics are having to drop coverage for their workers.
Projections show that in 2027, insurance premiums for policies sponsored by employers are expected to rise by 8.2%. Those increases are likely to impact even entities like Astiva Health that have for long focused on addressing the needs of underserved communities, such as racial minorities.
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