News release: “HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius…address[ed] the University of Chicagos dialogue on health care reform and education and issue a new report on the employer-sponsored insurance market. The new report, Insurance Insecurity: Families Are Losing Employer-Sponsored Insurance Coverage, highlights problems in the status quo that have left Americans who receive health insurance from an employer at risk of losing their insurance coverage and joining the ranks of the uninsured.
“Health care costs doubled from 1996 to 2006, and are projected to rise to 25 percent of GDP in 2025.1 As a result of skyrocketing health care costs and challenging economic times, Americans are finding stable sources of quality health insurance coverage harder and harder to find. Sixty-one percent of working age individuals and their families receive employer-sponsored insurance coverage, and this coverage is increasingly in jeopardy.2 Loss of health insurance even for a short period of time can have devastating financial and health consequences as a result of limited options for meaningful coverage outside the employer-sponsored market. The primary source of instability in the employer-sponsored insurance market is the decrease in employers offering health insurance coverage to workers and their families. Between 2000 and 2008, the percentage of firms offering health insurance coverage to their employees declined from 69 to 63; for firms employing less than 10 workers, the decline was even greater from 57 to 49 percent.”
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