As healthcare costs in the United States sky-rocket, traditional employer-based health coverage is eroding. Employers are responding to rising costs by cutting health benefits and increasing employee cost-sharing. The share of firms offering health coverage to their employees has fallen from 69 percent in 2000 to 60 percent in 2007. Most workers with employer-sponsored health coverage are burdened by additional healthcare costs such as annual deductibles and copays. Over 95 percent of covered employees face cost-sharing for non-preventative care such as hospital stays and outpatient surgery.

Half of all uninsured workers are no longer offered coverage by their employers at all. Another quarter of uninsured employees are without health insurance because they do not meet strict eligibility requirements for employer-sponsored coverage. The final 25 percent of employees have opted out of their employer-sponsored health coverage, primarily due to the unaffordable costs of premiums and cost-sharing.

In Massachusetts, employees have faced rapidly rising health care costs in the past five years, as employee contributions to health care plans increase.

^{Data obtained from the Massachusetts Employer Health Insurance Survey, by the Massachusetts DHCFP. http://www.mass.gov/Eeohhs2/docs/dhcfp/r/survey/er_2005_comp_results.pdf}

These trends are expected to continue in the coming years as costs continue to rise. A recent study reported that, of employers who currently provide health coverage to their employees, between 37 percent and 45 percent thought they were “very or somewhat likely” to increase the amount workers contribute to premiums, to increase deductibles, increase office-visit cost-sharing, or increase the amount employees have to pay for prescription drugs in the coming year.

The current health care system in the United States leaves much of the population uninsured or underinsured. Employer-provided health coverage is often expensive and incomplete, particularly as increasing healthcare costs consume larger portions of business’ budgets. A universal single-payer health care plan would remove the burden of costly health care coverage from both employers and employees, and would offer all residents steady, dependable and comprehensive coverage.

Further Resources:

• “Worker’s Health Insurance: Trends, Issues, and Options to Expand Coverage,” Paul Fronstin, Ph.D, The Commonwealth Fund, March 2006.
• “Employer Health Benefits 2007 Annual Survey,” Kaiser Family Foundation.
• “Changers in Employees’ Health Insurance Coverage, 2001-2005,” Kaiser Family Foundation, October 2006.
• “Are You Really Covered?” Consumer Reports, May 2007.