Nearly 96% of large private sector employers (with 50 or more employees) offer health insurance to employees, compared to 36% of small employers.
On average, private sector employers cover 74% of premiums for family coverage.
What's the relevance of this data?
America's self-destructive trade policies have destroyed thousands of small businesses in the United States. Thus, you can imagine how this has contributed to the declining rate of health insurance coverage over the past several years.
The effects have been devastating, from relocation of entire companies to China and elsewhere, to the destruction of jobs by Wal-Mart and Costco. And it has resulted in the loss of employee benefits, from retirement plans to healthcare benefits.
Remember, America is the only nation in the world with employer-based healthcare. Therefore, when an employee gets laid off he loses his health insurance.
In the only nation in the world that practices free and unfair trade imposed upon an employer-based healthcare system, we see a much more pervasive macroeconomic problem. When companies like Wal-Mart enter a town, they leverage their trade relationships with China (which itself uses illegal tactics) to undercut small businesses like hardware stores, carpet, tile and flooring retail stores, and even local manufacturers. What you end up with is the destruction of formerly good jobs with employee benefits. Some of these jobs are replaced with jobs at Wal-Mart.
Wal-Mart does not provide reasonable employee benefits and it certainly doesn’t offer living wages unless you are able to work 90 hours per week, or unless you happen to be a store manager. In the latter case, you’re also going to receive a nice benefits package.
So when an American worker gets laid off or loses his job by no fault of his own, he suddenly finds himself without health insurance. This can create a huge stress if he has a family. To help laid off workers with the transition between jobs, Washington created COBRA several years ago (continued below).
| Firms with Fewer than 50 Employees | Firms with 50 Employees or More | |
|---|---|---|
| United States | 35.7% | 95.7% |
| Alabama | 37.5% | 97.5% |
| Alaska | 23.2% | 94.0% |
| Arizona | 28.8% | 94.8% |
| Arkansas | 24.1% | 93.0% |
| California | 37.9% | 93.4% |
| Colorado | 32.6% | 97.7% |
| Connecticut | 43.7% | 97.0% |
| Delaware | 35.8% | 96.7% |
| District of Columbia | 49.6% | 97.3% |
| Florida | 27.0% | 95.5% |
| Georgia | 28.6% | 96.7% |
| Hawaii | 77.9% | 99.4% |
| Idaho | 25.7% | 93.9% |
| Illinois | 32.7% | 96.5% |
| Indiana | 27.4% | 97.6% |
| Iowa | 30.4% | 95.4% |
| Kansas | 39.6% | 96.7% |
| Kentucky | 37.4% | 95.6% |
| Louisiana | 33.2% | 94.2% |
| Maine | 28.4% | 96.5% |
| Maryland | 39.1% | 97.3% |
| Massachusetts | 53.2% | 98.1% |
| Michigan | 36.9% | 98.3% |
| Minnesota | 32.7% | 93.9% |
| Mississippi | 25.8% | 96.2% |
| Missouri | 34.8% | 94.9% |
| Montana | 30.6% | 95.5% |
| Nebraska | 25.3% | 93.9% |
| Nevada | 35.8% | 97.0% |
| New Hampshire | 39.4% | 97.3% |
| New Jersey | 46.7% | 96.5% |
| New Mexico | 30.0% | 93.4% |
| New York | 44.5% | 96.0% |
| North Carolina | 30.3% | 96.1% |
| North Dakota | 35.3% | 94.7% |
| Ohio | 39.1% | 96.7% |
| Oklahoma | 32.4% | 92.7% |
| Oregon | 34.1% | 95.2% |
| Pennsylvania | 46.7% | 98.0% |
| Rhode Island | 49.1% | 97.9% |
| South Carolina | 31.2% | 96.0% |
| South Dakota | 31.6% | 94.4% |
| Tennessee | 37.1% | 98.1% |
| Texas | 28.4% | 92.3% |
| Utah | 27.7% | 94.5% |
| Vermont | 41.2% | 98.9% |
| Virginia | 37.8% | 97.2% |
| Washington | 32.4% | 94.4% |
| West Virginia | 33.1% | 94.8% |
| Wisconsin | 32.5% | 96.7% |
| Wyoming | 29.8% | 96.3% |
| Notes: |
The standard error for the U.S. offer rate is approximately 0.41% for firms with fewer than 50 employees and 0.15% for firms with 50 or more employees. The standard error for state level estimates (less than 50 employees) ranges between 1.26-3.70% and the standard error for state level estimates (50+ employees) ranges between 0.60-2.80%. |
| Sources: |
Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, Center for Cost and Financing Studies. 2011 Medical Expenditure Panel Survey - Insurance Component. Table II.A.2. |
| Definitions: |
MEPS: The Medical Expenditure Panel Survey IC is an annual survey of establishments that collects information about employer-sponsored health insurance offerings in the United States. |
COBRA basically provides laid-off workers with the same rates of health insurance that they were paying through their employer for up to 6 months.
After that, these individuals will have to shop for health insurance in the predatory retail market and will be paying higher prices.
In addition to the 6-month limit, there are two bigger problems with COBRA. In order to qualify, you must jump through several hurdles over a set time period. Quite simply, the process is very confusing and many laid off workers have failed to qualify because they did not know how the system works.
But the main problem with COBRA is that it does nothing to address the excessive costs of health insurance. For instance, when you get laid off, you might get unemployment insurance of say $1300 per month. Unfortunately, this is not enough to pay health insurance for a family of four.
You see, COBRA does not lock in health insurance rates based upon what a laid off person was previously paying out of his pocket. It locks in the total rate, including what the employer was paying, which remember is on average is 74% of the premiums. Employees pay the remaining 26% plus out-of-pocket expenses like copays and deductibles.
So, as you can imagine, when a person loses his job he will be paying 400% higher (from previously paying for 26% to now paying for 100%) for health premiums since that 74% that was previously being paid by employers is no longer there. COBRA does not address this issue, which is why most laid off workers don't even use COBRA. They simply don't have sufficient funds.
That $1300 per month they are receiving from unemployment insurance is going towards food, utilities and rent. The jobless simply don’t have enough to pay for health insurance.
Do you want the truth about the healthcare system?
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All of this and much more can be found in America's Healthcare Solution, the world's most comprehensive and informative book on the U.S. healthcare system; that is a fact.
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Click here for Table of Contents
But Mike isn't simply an uncompensated whistleblower and critic of America's poorly-run, error-prone and very costly healthcare system. He also provides viable solutions; solutions corporate America and Washington don't want you to know about because they want healthcare to be run like Wall Street.
Keep in mind that this book isn't an outsider's analysis of the healthcare system.
Aside from having successfully completed dozens of advanced courses in the life sciences from every field you can imagine (immunology, physiology, human genetics, anatomy, molecular biology, biochemistry, cellular genetics, molecular genetics, nucleic acid structure and function, protein folding dynamics, protein spectroscopy and x-ray crystallography, just to name a few)...
...Mike has also worked in the private equity and venture capital side of the industry, helping to design healthcare business strategy and technology implementation for next-generation healthcare firms.
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