Co-Pay, No Pay

Between 2009 and 2011, total health spending grew at just 3.9 percent a year, the lowest annual pace in the last five decades. In contrast, between 2000 and 2007, those annual figures ranged between 6.2 and 9.7 percent.

Among other factors, studies have found that rising out-of-pocket payments have played a major role in the decline. The proportion of workers with employer-sponsored health insurance enrolled in a plan that required a deductible climbed to about three-quarters in 2012. Moreover, those deductibles have risen sharply, and make workers think twice before making health expenditures.