Tracking Health Insurance Coverage by Month : Trends in Employment-Based Coverage Among Workers, and Access to Coverage Among Uninsured Workers, 1995-2009

There is a strong link between health benefits and employment. As a result, employment-based health benefits are the most common form of health insurance for nonpoor and nonelderly individuals in the United States. In 2009, 59 percent of nonelderly individuals were covered by an employment-based health benefits plan, with 68.2 percent of workers covered, 34.6 percent of nonworking adults covered, and 55.8 percent of children covered. Since the 1980s, the percentage of individuals without health insurance coverage has generally been increasing, in large part because rising health benefit costs eroded employment-based coverage. However, for a few years during the late 1990s, the percentage of workers and their families with employment-based coverage increased and the percentage without health insurance declined, in large part due to the strong economy and low unemployment. While the percentage of workers with coverage has ebbed and flowed with the economy and health care costs, trends in the percentage of workers offered coverage and the percentage of workers taking coverage when offered have remained steady. Prior research had shown that the percentage of workers offered health benefits had been increasing, but the take-up rate had been declining. The purpose of this paper is to examine the state of employment-based health benefits. Coverage rates are examined on a monthly basis from December 1995 to December 2009. This analysis updates prior EBRI research that examined trends in coverage on a monthly basis over this time period. Examining these data on a monthly basis allows more accurate identification of changes in trends, and can also more clearly indicate the effects of recessions and unemployment on changes in coverage. Trends in offer rates and reasons for being uninsured among uninsured workers are also examined. The PDF for the above title, published in the June 2011 issue of EBRI Notes, also contains the fulltext of another June 2011 EBRI Notes article abstracted on SSRN: “How Changes in Longevity Annuity Prices and Longevity Risk Affect Retirement Income Adequacy.”