Survey: 43% of Americans likely to pay more for health insurance in 2016

According to the latest survey conducted by leading personal finance website GOBankingRates.com, 43 percent of Americans expect to pay more for health insurance in 2016, with 23 percent expecting to pay "a little more than the last year" and 20 percent expecting to pay "a lot more than the last year."

To see what kind of cost increases Americans are anticipating, GOBankingRates conducted a Google Consumer Survey, asking over 5,000 respondents, "How much do you expect to pay for healthcare in the next year?"

The breakdown of responses according to the four answer options is as follows:

• Less than the last year — 20%
• Same as the last year — 37%
• A little more than the last year — 23%
• A lot more than the last year — 20%

"Healthcare costs are definitely trending up and are likely to continue to do so as states continue to conform to standards set by the Affordable Care Act," said Elyssa Kirkham, the lead GOBankingRates reporter on the study. "With wages remaining relatively stagnant, higher prices on everything from health insurance premiums to prescription drugs will put pressure on Americans' budgets."

Additional findings:

• Almost half (48.7 percent) of individuals 65 and older expect to pay more for healthcare, whereas only 14 percent of respondents in the same age group expect to pay less in 2016.
• About 40 percent of women expect health costs to stay the same, compared with only 33.4 percent of men.
• Hawaii, Iowa and Oklahoma are the only three states with a majority of respondents expecting healthcare costs to decrease.