Health Care Costs Are Becoming Unsustainable

—Douglas Sacha—Getty Images Amber Kostka, who owns The Stockpot restaurant in Hampton Roads, Va., says she has tried to do right by her employees by offering them health insurance, alongside good wages and a 401k.

But as costs have risen—premiums have roughly tripled since the company first started offering health insurance in 2018—her employees are increasingly telling her they can’t afford health insurance.

That’s even though she splits the cost of premiums with employees, which are roughly $400 a month.

Instead, employees are dropping out of the plan and going uninsured, she says.

About 35% of her eligible employees now buy the employer-sponsored health insurance, she says, down from 50% prior to COVID.

She wants to warn them about the risks of going without insurance, she says, but also knows their finances are extremely tight.

“It’s just a cost thing, at the end of the day,” she says.

“You can’t stop paying for groceries.” Her employees aren’t alone.

The share of working-age U.S. adults without health insurance rose to 11.2% in 2026, up from 8.9% in 2024, according to new research from the Commonwealth Fund.

People don’t have health insurance because the costs of everything—including gasoline, housing, and food—are rising, and they’re deciding they can’t afford to pay for even employer-sponsored plans like Kostka’s.

“The whole system just seems like a complete gamble with people’s lives,” she says.

Some people are looking at the price of plans on the Affordable Care Act marketplace and deciding they can’t afford health insurance.

Premiums on the ACA marketplaces increased by an average of 58% in 2026 after Congress decided last year not to renew expiring subsidies.

Ironically, these uninsured Americans may be helping drive the cost of health care even higher, fueling a cycle in which health insurance gets more expensive, forcing more people to drop coverage.