Health premiums rose, but whose fault was it?

Health insurance cost increases outpaced any gains in worker wages in 2011, but the role President Obama's federal health care law played is a matter of contention.

A study just out from the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonprofit research group that each year looks at trends in employer-sponsored health insurance, found an increase of 9 percent in 2011 over the cost of coverage in 2010, a steeper increase by several percentage points than other recent years. It said that the average annual premium for family coverage through an employer reached $15,073 this year.

Less clear is whether it's a singular event or the start of a trend, wrote Drew Altman, president and CEO of Kaiser, on the foundation's website.

"How much the new federal health care law pushed by President Obama is affecting insurance rates remains a point of debate, with some analysts suggesting that insurers have raised prices in anticipation of new rules that would, in 2012, require them to justify any increase of more than 10 percent," wrote Reed Abelson in the New York Times.

"In addition to increases caused by insurers getting ahead of potential costs, some of the law's provisions that are already in effect — like coverage for adult children up to 26 years of age and prevention services like mammogram screening — have contributed to higher expenses for some employers," he continued.

FoxNews' Doug McKelway seemed to place the blame squarely on health care reform with a story that began: "The signature legislation of the Obama Administration, the Affordable Care Act, came under damaging assault Wednesday from a Kaiser Family Foundation survey that found it has already partially contributed to increasing health care costs."

The foundation report noted that a current provision of the act, allowing adult children to stay on their parents' insurance policy up to age 26, was responsible for up to one-fifth of this year's increase.

The FoxNews report did also cite the aging of baby boomers, the price of new technologies, research and development of new medications and an increase in chronic diseases as among the costs associated with the increased premiums.

The blog The Hill said that the Obama administration was playing defense ahead of the Kaiser survey release, citing the White House blog.

"The Kaiser report is informative," White House deputy chief of staff Nancy-Ann DeParle wrote, "but it's a look backwards. When we look to the future, we know that the Affordable Care Act will help make insurance more affordable for families and businesses across the country."

What all sides of the debate do agree on is that one way to reduce the cost of health care is to reduce some of the need for health care. That will require living healthier lives, they all said in some variation of the theme.

And some of the changes that could make an impact are relatively simple. For instance, this week Forbes Magazine created a list of eight things you can do to protect health and wealth. It included some basics like taking care of your teeth and getting more exercise, both already long proven to improve overall health.

EMAIL: lois@desnews.com, Twitter: Loisco