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20/12/2007
The decline in health insurance coverage continued unabated in 2006, driven primarily by the continued erosion in employer-provided health insurance. In 2006, 47 million Americans were uninsured, up nearly 8.6 million since 2000.
The rate of those without insurance has grown 2.1 percentage points during this period, from 13.7% in 2000 to 15.8% in 2006.
Employment-based coverage is still the most prominent form of health insurance in the United States at 59.7% of all Americans; however, the rate of this coverage has fallen in every year since 2000. In 2000, 64.2% of Americans had employer-provided health insurance.By 2006, this percent had fallen 4.5 percentage points.
Nearly 2.3 million fewer Americans had employment based insurance in 2006 than in 2000. This decline does not take into account population growth. As many as 13 million more people would have had employer-provided health insurance in 2006 if the coverage rate had remained at the 2000 level.
Because of these large declines in employer-provided health insurance, workers and their families have been falling into the ranks of the uninsured at alarming rates. There were almost 5 million more uninsured workers in 2006 than in 2000. While uninsured workers are disproportionately young, non-white, less educated, and low wage, workers across the socio-economic spectrum have experienced losses in coverage. Even the most highly educated and highest wage workers had lower rates of insurance coverage in 2006 than in 2000.
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