For weeks, the Associated Press has been running a series of thumbnail sketches detailing different aspects of the health insurance reform debate going on in Congress.
Today's, published locally in the Seattle Times, answers one of the most frequent questions we get at the Washington state insurance commissioner's office: On average, how much do people pay for health coverage?
For the answer, the AP turned to the Kaiser Family Foundation's 2009 survey, which found that employer-provided coverage for one worker costs an average of $4,824 a year, with the worker paying an average of $779.
To cover a family, the cost is $13,375, with the worker paying $3,515.
But click on both links -- there's more data there about what those costs might look like in a few years, and some discussion about the potential effect of federal reform.