Health insurance premiums have increased 2.5 times faster than employees’ wages between 2000 and 2007, according to a report released this week by Families USA, a non-profit organization that seeks to acheive affordable, quality health care for Americans.

Even worse, those premiums aren’t stretching as far as they used to, said Ron Pollack, executive director of Families USA.

The economic crisis has caused a severe strain on residents and businesses, but it’s now causing companies to re-examine how they offer medical coverage to their employees.

A teleconference with Pollack and Sen. Harry Reid revealed how the troubling trend is a sign of diminishing economic health.

“More people are joining the ranks of the underinsured and the uninsured, which is about 463,000 Nevadans, or one out of every five in the non-elderly population,” Pollack said.

The report, entitled “Premiums versus Paychecks: A Growing Burden for Nevada’s Workers,” states that the number of uninsured Americans rose from 38.4 million to 45.7 million, a 20 percent increase.

The findings of the report also show that the percentage of adult Americans covered by employment-based insurance dropped from 64.2 percent in 2000 to 59.3 percent in 2007. Also, the report states, for family health coverage in Nevada, the average annual premium (employer and worker share of premiums combined) went up from $6,688 to $10,341, an increase of $3,652.

The average annual premium for individual health coverage health rose from $2,578 to $3,802.

Families are forced to pay higher out-of-pocket coverage costs, including deductibles, co-payments and other services not covered by their plans, according to the report, which in turn absorbs more dollars out of families’ budgets.

Likewise, more local businesses are being forced to cost-shift, or share its coverage dollars, with its employees.

The Sparks Tribune, for example, a company of about 30 employees, recently changed its medical plan because of cost increases. Insurance was changed to cover only generic medications and the deductible increased from $250 to $500 and office co-pays went from $30 to $35. The new plan also dropped vision coverage.

While the increase in deductible is a jump of 100 percent, annual pay increases at the Tribune have not surpassed 3 percent.

Ed McCaffrey, publisher of the Sparks Tribune, said the changes were necessary to continue the company’s practice of footing 95 percent of insurance premium costs for the employees.

“When you look at what other companies do, when I talk to people in the industry and friends of mine who are still on health insurance, they can’t believe we’re footing,” McCaffrey said.

Other options the company had looked at, McCaffrey said, would have resulted in a 60-percent increase on the age-based program, which takes into the account of the age of the company’s staff and what medical conditions employees may have.

It can have an impact on whether people need to change doctors down to the medications they take, he said.

“We’ve been looking at this for the past three years,” he said. “It’s unfortunate those who use (the coverage) the most are also going to pay the most in terms of co-pays. One of the most significant changes were prescriptions. Myself now being on generic brands, my co-pays were unbelievably reduced. If an employee chooses to use a brand name prescription, they can; they just have to pay the difference.”

Employers are the “first line of defense” to provide benefits, said Mitch Laughton of Laughton Co., insurance broker for the Tribune, and they’ve absorbed so much of the cost it’s breaking the backs of some companies.

With so few options available, more employers are resorting to shifting the cost of coverage to their employees, Laughton said.

“It’s on everybody’s radar screen, but the solutions haven’t been acceptable to the American public,” Laughton said.

Sen. Reid said the news is a “triple whammy” to the public.

“Everyone is feeling the effects of this terrible economy and it seems every day the news gets worse,” he said of the “toxic” situation. “Nevadans are suffering. ... Half of all bankruptcies are caused by medical bills. At the root of this is our need to reduce the cost of health care.”

Bob Fulkerson, state director of the Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada, called the increase of premiums over paychecks “outrageous.”

“There is some hope on the way,” Fulkerson said, referring to some bill draft concepts State Sen. David Bobzien currently is working on to require insurance companies to disclose how profits and other expenses compare to the cost of health care itself.

“The idea is that we’re all in this together,” Fulkerson said. “We need access to health care and health care reform that says people more important than these enormous profits. That need has never been greater.”

The study began in 2006 when Families USA undertook the first state-by-state analysis of increasing health care premiums versus earnings in the new milennium. The report is based on data from the U.S. Census Bureau, the Department of Labor and the Department of Health and Human Services.