1,711,000 people, and no enrollment period anybody writes about
1,711,000 Kansans, 58.9 percent of the civilian noninstitutionalized population, held employer-based coverage in 2024, against 470,000 who bought a policy directly and 389,000 covered by Medicaid[1]. The table publishes in thousands and its own note says the coverage types are not mutually exclusive, so the rows are not slices of a pie and do not add to the total.
The employer market has no public window, no county map and no weekly enrollment release. It is measured by survey, and the survey is annual.
Fifty employees, and the two definitions that part company below it
Federal law divides employers at the same place from both directions. A small employer, at 42 U.S.C. 300gg-91(e)(4), is one that employed an average of at least one but not more than 50 employees on business days during the preceding calendar year and employs at least one on the first day of the plan year. A large employer, at (e)(2), employed an average of at least 51 and employs at least two on the first day of the plan year[3].
Kansas draws the same upper line and a different lower one. Under K.S.A. 40-2209d a small employer is one whose total employed work force consisted, on at least 50 percent of its working days during the preceding year, of at least two and no more than 50 eligible employees, the majority of them employed within the state[4]. The same section defines an eligible employee as one working full time with a normal work week of 30 or more hours, a definition that takes in a sole proprietor, a partner in a partnership and an independent contractor, and leaves out anyone working part time, temporarily or as a substitute.
A Kansas business with one employee therefore sits inside the federal small group definition and outside the state one. The section carries seven entries in its history note, running from its enactment in 1992 to its most recent amendment in 2019[4].
What the Insurance Department reviews, and what it does not
The actuarial review of premium rate filings is conducted by the Kansas Department of Insurance, which uses claims data from the Kansas Health Insurance Information System to assess whether requested rates are justified, equitable and not excessive[5].
For 2026 the filed average rate revisions in the small group market ran from 8.37 percent to 9.97 percent, a narrow band next to the individual market’s range of minus 6.14 percent to 33.66 percent[5]. Kansas has no coverage available through the Small Business Health Options Program exchange. Small group coverage is sold off the SHOP by Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Kansas Inc., Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Kansas City, Medical Associates Health Plan Inc. and UnitedHealthcare Insurance Company, and the department counts 133 small group policies for 2026.
Two things sold to Kansas employers and households are outside the department’s reach entirely. Farm Bureau plans and health care sharing ministries are not regulated by the Kansas Department of Insurance, because under state and federal law they are not considered health insurance[5]. That is a jurisdictional fact rather than a judgment about them, and it decides who answers if something goes wrong.
What is sold differs by market as much as what it costs. The department counts 64 individual policies on the 2026 marketplace: 24 expanded bronze, 19 silver, 20 gold, one catastrophic and no platinum. Off the SHOP it counts 133 small group policies: 19 expanded bronze, 38 silver, 61 gold and 15 platinum[5]. No platinum policy appears anywhere in the department’s individual market tables for 2026, on the marketplace or off it. Gold and platinum together are 76 of those 133 small group policies.
The price, per enrolled employee, per year
The Medical Expenditure Panel Survey Insurance Component surveys establishments rather than plans, and it is conducted for the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality by the Census Bureau. Its 2025 state tables put the average annual premium for single coverage at a Kansas private-sector establishment at $8,586, of which the employee paid $1,939[2].
| Measure | Kansas | United States |
|---|---|---|
| Total premium, single coverage | $8,586 | $9,025 |
| Employee contribution, single | $1,939 | $1,817 |
| Employer cost, single | $6,647 | $7,209 |
| Total premium, family coverage | $25,947 | $26,281 |
| Employee contribution, family | $7,013 | $7,314 |
| Employer cost, family | $18,934 | $18,967 |
| Average deductible, single coverage | $2,498 | $2,169 |
| Average deductible, family coverage | $4,639 | $3,997 |
Read the standard errors before reading the gaps
The Kansas single premium sits below the national average while the Kansas employee’s share of it sits above, and deductibles run higher here in both single and family coverage[2]. Before any of that is called a finding, the same file gives a standard error of $258.62 on the Kansas single premium and $839.85 on the Kansas family premium. A Kansas movement of a few hundred dollars between years is inside the survey noise and is not movement.
Two boundaries on the table. It covers private-sector establishments only; state and local government employers are surveyed separately and are not in these figures[2]. And it is per enrolled employee, so it says nothing about how many employees were offered coverage and declined it.
The department writes that a large factor in the 2025 increase in individual market enrollment could be the Medicaid unwinding, and that the small group market decline could also be a factor in it[5]. Both are stated as possibilities and neither is stated as a finding. Its chart of individual and small group covered lives on May 1, 2025 prints five categories and no total: 195,007 on the federally facilitated marketplace, 55,324 off it, 33,932 in transitional plans, 1,903 in grandfathered plans and 1,452 in short-term limited duration policies, which come to 287,618 when added up.
The figure this page wanted and does not have is the Kansas split by firm size, which would show whether small employers here pay more per head than large ones. The Medical Expenditure Panel Survey publishes that cut in its table II series, whose state pages have moved off the addresses that served them and could not be located for the 2025 data year. The rest of what this publication has on how Kansans pay for care is indexed at the front page.