Many lost health insurance from employer, study says

By John A. Macdonald
The Hartford Courant

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The economic downturn that started in 2001, as well as a 28 percent increase in the cost of insurance, caused the decline in coverage, the study says.

The stronger economy now emerging could halt the slide but is unlikely to lead to a substantial increase in coverage over the long term, it says.

"Health-care costs — and health-insurance premiums — continue to outpace workers' incomes by a large margin," said Bradley Strunk, co-author of the study released by the Center for Studying Health System Change, a nonpartisan research group. "Such rapid growth will continue to strain employers and make private insurance less and less affordable."

The study looked at the percentage of Americans younger than 65 covered by employer-provided insurance.

Overall, it found the number with coverage dropped from 67 percent in 2001 to 63.4 percent in 2003, leaving 8.9 million fewer people insured.

Public plans, such as Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Program, largely offset the decline in private coverage, so the percentage of uninsured Americans did not change significantly overall, the study found.

During the study period, the percentage of working-age Americans enrolled in public programs increased from 9 to 12 percent.

"Clearly, public insurance programs provided a safety net for millions of people — especially children — who otherwise probably would have lost coverage as the country moved through a recession and a jobless recovery," said Paul Ginsburg, president of the nonpartisan center.

The center's study makes these additional points:

• All age groups experienced a decline in employer coverage, but the changes were particularly pronounced for young adults ages 19 to 39. For that group, coverage declined from 64.9 to 59.4 percent over the two-year period.

• Insurance coverage for workers with family incomes less than twice the federal poverty level — $36,800 for a family of four — declined from 37.4 to 32.5 percent.

• Hispanics were the least likely among major ethnic groups to have employer-provided coverage. The percentage of Hispanics with employer-provided insurance dropped from 46.7 to 39.7 percent during the study period.

Copyright © 2004 The Seattle Times Company

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