Report: Employer-based health insurance shows decline

May 24 2012

A new report from the Employee Benefit Research Institute finds that employment-based health coverage has taken steps back after a brief uptick. 

The Wall Street Journal's Total Return: Employment-Based Health Coverage Is Waning
Bad news for workers: The "brief uptick" in employer-based health coverage right after the recession "has not endured," according to a new report from the Employee Benefit Research Institute. Between December 2007 and June 2009, the percentage of workers with health coverage in their own name fell to 56% from 60.4%. Coverage rose by almost 1 percentage point by the end of 2009, and then fell to 55.8% by April 2011 (Greene, 5/22).

Modern Healthcare: Rise In Worker Coverage Short-Lived: Report
The percentage of workers with employer-based health insurance coverage edged up briefly after the last recession but dropped during the first half of last year, according to a new Employee Benefit Research Institute report. "After August 2009, there appears to be what might be the beginning of a recovery in the percentage of workers with employment-based coverage," said the report authored by Paul Fronstin, director of health research and education program with the institute (Evans, 5/22).

In related news -

NPR Shots Blog: Health Insurance Cutbacks Squeeze The Insured
Amber Cooper and her husband were doing OK. They both had jobs. A healthy 5-year-old son, a house in Riverbank, Calif., and health insurance from her job in the accounting department of a small manufacturing company. But then one day everything changed (Stein, 5/23).