http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/health/AP-Health-Insurance.html
Filed at 5:58 p.m. ET
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The booming economy of the late 1990s did not lead to an increase in the percentage of American workers covered by employer-sponsored health insurance, a study finds.
The number of uninsured children in working families dropped, but only because of a new government program.
Overall, about three in four people under age 65 in working families got health insurance from an employer in 2001, statistically unchanged from 1997, according to the report released Wednesday by the Center for Studying Health System Change.
During most of those years, health costs were relatively stable. That, combined with the strong economy and demand for workers, should have helped increase health insurance coverage in the private sector but it didn't, analysts said.
``These findings tell us that relying on economic growth to reduce the number of uninsured won't work,'' said Paul B. Ginsburg, president of the research center. ``Short of a major public investment ... significantly reducing the number of uninsured Americans in working families isn't likely.''
In 2001, there were 189 million people under age 65 in working families. Of them, 75.6 percent had insurance through an employer. Another 8.4 percent were offered insurance but didn't take it, typically because their share of the premium was too expensive. Sixteen percent were not offered health insurance at all.
Kate Sullivan, director of health policy for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, said the numbers didn't increase more because so many of the new jobs were created by cash-strapped small businesses, who traditionally have trouble affording coverage for their workers. She added that in raw numbers, rather than percentages, the number of people with employer-sponsored coverage rose, as the total number of workers rose.
Still, she agreed with the report's conclusion. ``I don't think you can count on employers to solve the problem of the uninsured,'' she said.
The increase in coverage came thanks to the State Children's Health Insurance Program, CHIP, which was created in 1997 and now covers more than 3 million children. It typically offers insurance on a sliding scale, with parents who earn more money paying a higher portion of the premium.
The portion of uninsured children in working families fell from 20.4 percent in 1997 to 15.5 percent in 2001.
Some of those kids were eligible for coverage from their parents' employers -- a problem that lawmakers worried about when creating CHIP. The program was designed to minimize this, to avoid spending taxpayer money to cover kids who have access to insurance in the private sector.
The study found that about a third to half of the children who signed up for CHIP otherwise would have had access to private coverage, though it might have been too expensive for their parents to buy.
The results are based on a telephone survey conducted in 1996-97 and again in 1998-99 and 2000-01. Each survey gathered information concerning about 60,000 people.
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