Tuesday, May 09, 2006: 5.1% Decline in Employees Accepting Health Insurance
Approximately 3 million fewer workers who were eligible for employer-sponsored health insurance enrolled in 2003 compared with 1998--from 85.4% of workers to 80.3%--according to Shifting Ground: Changes in Employer-Sponsored Health Insurance, a new report by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Although employers continued to pay 82% of the cost of health insurance during that five-year period, the portion of the premiums employees paid skyrocketed 42% after being adjusted for inflation. Twenty-five states experienced a significant decrease in the percent of private-sector employees who accepted their employers’ offer of health insurance during this period, such as New Jersey (-12 percentage points), Nebraska (-11 percentage points), Wisconsin (-9 percentage points), Colorado (-9 percentage points), and Iowa (-9 percentage points). “With premiums rising each year for companies and their employees, millions of workers are no longer accepting the health insurance offered through their jobs,” said Risa Lavizzo-Mourey, president and CEO of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. “If trends continue, this could dramatically increase the number of working but uninsured people in this nation.”