Thursday by the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonprofit research group.

But the propaganda was much better for employers than their workers, according to the survey, which is conducted yearly by Kaiser with the Health Research and Educational Trust, an organization affiliated with the American Hospital Association. Instead of sharing the pain, as they have generally done in the past, employers chose to keep their costs steady by passing the higher costs onto workers.

As a result, the employee donation toward family coverage rose an average of 14 percent, or almost $500, from what employees paid last year. Workers are now paying nearly $4,000 a year for a family policy, a jump of 47 percent since 2005. Wages have increased by just 18 percent during that time, according to Kaiser. It included a chart detailing the changes over the last five years.

Employees are not only paying higher premiums but also higher deductibles. About a quarter of covered workers have a deductible of at least $1,000, according to Kaiser, and nearly half of employees in small companies do.