From what I see, group rates were up around 5% in general last year, but imo that's not really the issue. A bipartisan congress could have passed something along G5000's thinking. Or, even something to my liking of just "giving" everyone a tax credit to get a basic physical and dental exam, require employers to fund basic catastrophic/cancer/noexclusions care coverage, with subsidies to small biz, phase out employer tax breaks .... and for those few who get horribly sick and exhaust all their benefits, put them in a govt paid program. And raise the taxes necessary to pay for that by not putting it on workers and insured. And reform Medicaid so it only covers the really sick.
But the GOP could not have done that because it involved using public money for healthcare, and somebody would have paid more taxes.