Deductible Boom Makes Many Skip Doctor

The exploding price of health-insurance deductibles are forcing many middle-class Americans to avoid going to the doctor as if they didn't have health insurance. A survey from the Commonwealth Fund found that four in 10 working-age adults skipped some kind of care because of the cost. The size of the average deductible has more than doubled in the past eight years, from $584 to $1,217 for individual coverage (and that’s on top of co-pays, co-insurance, and the costs of prescriptions and procedures). The percentage of workers with annual deductibles rose from 55 percent eight years ago to 80% today.