Health Issue Coverage On The Local News
Over 3.8 million fewer Americans had employers issue health insurance in 2003 than in 2000. This is an American health issue. Employer provided health coverage fell for both primary policy holders and their dependents. The percentage of workers who received employer provided coverage from their own job fell 2.5 percentage points.
Over 2.4 million fewer children had employment based health insurance in 2003 than in 2000. Medicaid expansions in the 1990s and the creation of SCHIP in 1997 significantly aided children who lost employer provided coverage.
Despite the lack of any significant legislative expansion of eligibility since 2000, many more children were covered by government insurance because they no longer qualified for or could afford employer provided health coverage.
Americans in the second-lowest wage quintile experienced the greatest declines in employer coverage. People in the second quintile of family income had a 5.6 percentage point decline in coverage.
Workers in the second-lowest wage quintile saw employer provided insurance rates drop 4.0 percentage points, and children in the second-lowest family income quintile experienced a decline in coverage of 8.6 percentage points.
This health issue is significant in that declines in coverage occurred for people in the lowest wage quintile, those in the second-lowest wage quintile have fewer government health insurance programs to fall back on and thus more likely to fall into the ranks of the uninsured when they lose employer coverage.
Data released last week from the Kaiser Family Foundation Health Issue Survey(2004) suggest the downward trend in companies that issue health coverage will continue into 2004. The Foundation Health Issue Survey found an increase in premiums of 11.2% between 2003 and 2004, the fourth straight year of double-digit increases. Given these increases, small employers in particular are less likely to offer issue health benefits.
Premiums continued to rise over four times faster than wage gains, so breadwinners are less likely to issue health insurance for their families as they are less able to afford the premiums associated with employer coverage. All of these data point toward a further drop in the number of employers that issue health coverage in the coming year.
