Employees have to pay a bigger share of their health insurance as the companies pass on more costs to their employees to survive recession.

As per a national study released this week, workers paid an average of 14 percent more in premiums this year while employers held their own cost increases to ‘a modest 3 percent’.

Maulik Joshi, president of the Health Research & Educational Trust, which conducted the study with the Kaiser Family Foundation said, “If premiums and costs continue to be shifted to consumers, households will face difficult choices.”

Workers also experienced out-of-pocket increase with higher deductibles and co-payments. The report also points out that “workers have little clout to demand better benefits or lower costs in the current labor environment.”

Seeing the average cost for family coverage shot up to $495 which means that workers supported nearly the whole increase, said the report.

The report also said, “a notable change from the steady share workers have paid on average over the last decade.”

Employees, however, continued to take on a huge share of health insurance costs.