Healthcare Costs Rise 6.5%: What Your Health Risk Personality Reveals

# Healthcare Costs Rise 6.5%: What Your Health Risk Personality Reveals

> **Quick answer:** Employer-sponsored healthcare costs are rising 6.5% per employee in 2026, the steepest jump since 2010, according to Mercer's survey of 1,700+ US employers. That number is forcing millions of Americans into open enrollment decisions they feel unprepared to make. How you respond to that pressure — whether you downgrade, over-insure, freeze, or optimize — directly maps to your health risk personality type and predicts whether you'll end up protected or exposed.

Healthcare costs are rising in 2026 at a rate most workers weren't expecting — and the way you're reacting tells you something specific about how you handle risk. Mercer's 2025 National Survey of Employer-Sponsored Health Plans found the average employer health benefit cost per employee is climbing 6.5% this year, the highest since 2010.

## Why Healthcare Costs Rise 6.5% in 2026 — and Keep Climbing

The employer-sponsored insurance market is absorbing pressure from several directions at once. Mercer Senior Partner Sunit Patel noted that without employer cost-cutting measures, per-employee plan costs would actually rise closer to 9% in 2026. The 6.5% figure already reflects employers raising deductibles, narrowing networks, and restricting drug coverage to offset the full impact.

Three specific drivers are pushing the number up: