Employer-Sponsored Health Care Fact Sheet

October 29, 2009

Fewer Americans are covered by an employer health insurance policy.

• In 2000, 68.3% of Americans under age 65 were covered by an employer policy; in 2008, the rate dropped to 61.9%. That amounts to 17 million fewer Americans insured by an employer policy.
• Lower-income Americans have been the hardest hit: the coverage rate for the bottom 40% of income earners dropped by about 10 percentage points, while for the top 40%, it declined by 3 percentage points.

Pennsylvania second only to Michigan in loss of employer coverage.

• In Pennsylvania, 694,471 fewer people were insured by an employer in 2007-08 than seven years before. Between 2000-01 and 2007-08, that number went from 7,929,984 in 2000-01 to 7,235,512 in 2007-08. Only Michigan saw a larger number decline.
• The rate of employer-sponsored health care also declined. It went from 75.9% in 2000-01 to 69.7% in 2007-08 – a 6.3-percentage-point drop.
• The percentage of Pennsylvania workers insured by their own employer declined. In 2000-2001, 82.5% of Pennsylvania workers were insured by their employer, and in 2007-2008, it declined to 77.9%. The national average of workers insured by their employer went from 74.4% in 2000-2001 to 70.6% in 2007-08.
• Despite declines in employer coverage, Pennsylvania has a higher rate of residents insured by an employer policy than the national average. In 2007-08, Pennsylvania ranked tenth among the 50 states and Washington, D.C., in the percentage of residents insured by an employer policy.

While more Pennsylvania children lose employer coverage, their rates of coverage remain steady.

• In Pennsylvania, 201,425 fewer children received employer health care in 2007-08 than seven years before. Between 2000-2001 and 2007-08, the percentage of children covered by an employer policy went from 74.3% to 67.4% – a decline of 6.9 percentage points.
• Nationally, there was a decline of 6 percentage points in employer coverage for children during the same period.
• Despite these declines, the number and rate of uninsured children in Pennsylvania has remained the same over the course of the decade – at about 200,000. This is likely due to the growth in the number of children enrolled in Medicaid or SCHIP. Since 2001-01, the share of the population with coverage through those public programs grew from 10% to 14.3%.