Health insurance coverage and unpaid health care for full-time workers and their family members without employer coverage costs the U.S. public $45 billion a year, according to a report from The Commonwealth Fund released May 2. This includes $33 billion in the cost of public coverage such as Medicaid and the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, and $12 billion in uncompensated care expenses--which are paid by federal, state, and local governments and shifted to other payers--provided to uninsured workers and dependents.
The report, Who Pays for Health Care When Workers Are Uninsured?, by Sherry Glied and Bisundev Mahato at Columbia University, found that 19 million full-time workers and their dependents were uninsured in 2004, compared with 16 million in 1999. Eleven million workers and their dependents were enrolled in public programs in 2004, up from 6 million in 1999, a 70 percent increase over the five-year period.
The cost borne by the public for workers not covered by their own employers is largely a result of fewer workers and worker family members obtaining health insurance coverage through their employers, even among those employed by firms with more than 100 employees, write the researchers. Read the report.
