Employers who shoulder the majority of health plan costs for their employees are no strangers to the rising cost of health care. As premiums increase year after year, some businesses have found the only way to help ease the burden is to move more of the cost to employees in the form of high-deductible health plans (HDHP).

In fact, a new study from the Health Care Cost Institute found that Americans with employer-sponsored health plans spent more on health care in 2016 than ever before, and in the past 15 years, health care costs have steadily risen at four times the rate of earnings.

The ripple effects of cost shifting

Rising costs have widespread implications on the country's 150 million workers who have health insurance through their employer:

Financial hardship. According to a study by the Kaiser Family Foundation, 26 percent of Americans struggle with paying off medical debt, and 66 percent of those Americans have debt from a one-time or short-term medical expense, such as a single hospital stay, not a chronic condition.