Pennsylvanians Lose Employment-Based Health Care Faster Than the Nation

HARRISBURG, Pa., Oct. 29 /PRNewswire/ -- Employers provided health insurance
to 694,471 fewer Pennsylvanians in 2007 and 2008 than at the start of the
decade, according to a new report analyzing U.S. Census data.

The Economic Policy Institute in Washington, D.C., and the Pennsylvania Budget
and Policy Center in Harrisburg jointly released the study, which found that
Pennsylvania outstripped every state in the nation except Michigan in the loss
of employer-sponsored health care between 2000-01 and 2007-08.

The report analyzed U.S. Census Bureau data from 2000 to 2008. State-level
data are averaged over two years to reduce sampling error.

Nationally, the percentage of Americans under age 65 covered by an employer
policy fell in each of the past eight years, going from 68.3% in 2000 to 61.9%
in 2008. That amounts to 17 million fewer Americans insured by an employer
policy today.

The number of Pennsylvania workers and their dependents with employment-based
health insurance fell from 7,929,984 in 2000-01 to 7,235,512 in 2007-08 - a
decline of 694,471. The rate of employer coverage in the commonwealth dropped
from 75.9% in 2000-01 to 69.7% in 2007-08 - outstripping the national average
decline during that period.

"The strong link between jobs and health care is eroding," said Sharon Ward,
Director of the Pennsylvania Budget and Policy Center. "Pennsylvanians who
once relied on a job to bring family health coverage increasingly must look
for other options."

"Congress must act soon to reform the health care system to make health care
more affordable to employers and to families," she added.

Overall, Pennsylvania has a higher rate of employment-based coverage than the
national average. Among the 50 states and Washington, D.C., the state ranked
10th in employer coverage rates in 2007-08.

Still, working Pennsylvanians are less likely to be insured by their employer
today than they were seven years ago. In 2000-01, 82.5% of working
Pennsylvanians were insured by their own employer, while in 2007-08, the rate
dropped to 77.9% - a decline of 4.7 percentage points.

Pennsylvania also has seen a larger-than-the-national-average decline in the
number of children covered by an employer policy. In 2007-08, 201,425 fewer
Pennsylvania children were covered by employer policies than seven years
before.

Still, the rate and number of children without health insurance has bucked
overall downward trends in Pennsylvania, remaining the same between 2000-2001
and 2007-2008. For both periods, approximately 200,000 children lacked
coverage, making up slightly more than 7% of the population.

As is the case nationally, increased enrollment in Medicaid and SCHIP
compensated for the loss of employment-based coverage for kids. Since 2000-01,
the share of the population with coverage through those public programs grew
from 10% to 14.3% in Pennsylvania.

Go to http://www.pennbpc.org/employer-healthcare for a more detailed fact
sheet on employer-sponsored health care in Pennsylvania. Go to
http://www.epi.org/publications/entry/bp247/ to access the full report.

A major cause of the decline in employer coverage is the skyrocketing cost of
health care, which has made employers less likely to offer insurance coverage
to their workers. Given the state of the economy, millions more Americans are
expected to lose employer-sponsored health insurance over the next two years
which is likely to further strain public programs.

"Many working Pennsylvanians and their families are falling through the cracks
of our current health care system," Ward said. "We need meaningful health care
reform that offers these families an affordable insurance option."

The Pennsylvania Budget and Policy Center (PBPC) is a non-partisan policy
research project that provides independent, credible analysis on state tax,
budget, and related policy matters, with attention to the impact of current or
proposed policies on working families.

The Economic Policy Institute (EPI) is an independent, nonprofit, nonpartisan
think tank that researches the impact of economic trends and policies on
working people in the United States and around the world. EPI's mission is to
inform people and empower them to seek solutions that will ensure broadly
shared prosperity and opportunity.

SOURCE The Pennsylvania Budget and Policy Center

Christopher Lilienthal, Communications Director, Pennsylvania Budget and
Policy Center, +1-717-255-7156 or +1-717-829-4823, Lilienthal@pennbpc.org