Excerpt: Key Findings: Health insurance is becoming increasingly difficult for workers -- and their employers -- to afford. Premiums increased 114 percent between 1999 and 2007, while workers' earnings increased only 27 percent. U.S. spending on health care -- as a percentage of Gross Domestic Product -- is more than six percentage points higher than the average for other developed countries. Technology -- not demographics or medical malpractice -- is the key driver of health spending, accounting for an estimated half to two-thirds of spending growth. Other important drivers of health care spending include health status (particularly obesity) and low productivity gains in the health care sector.

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