Study: More North Carolina workers lack health insurance

From Triangle Business Journal



Fewer North Carolina workers have health insurance through their jobs, according to a new study released Tuesday.



The report, Prognosis Worsens for Workers' Health Care, published by the Washington, D.C.-based Economic Policy Institute, found that the proportion of North Carolinians with job-based health insurance fell by 6.7 percent between 2000 and 2004.



In raw numbers, it means 559,000 fewer North Carolinians get health insurance in 2004 through their employer or their spouse's employer than in 2000.



"This dramatic decline in job-based health insurance has contributed directly to the growth in the state's Medicaid caseload and the surge in the ranks of the uninsured," says Adam Searing, director of the North Carolina Health Access Coalition. "Clearly we have a health-care crisis, not a Medicaid crisis."



Nationally, the study found that 3.7 million fewer Americans had job-based health insurance in 2004 than in 2000. Middle class workers earning between $45,000 and $67,000 a year had the sharpest decline in job-based insurance, and fewer than six in 10 children were covered through employer-sponsored health plans in 2004.



The study also found that more North Carolinians per capita - 16.5 percent - lack health insurance compared to 15.7 percent of all Americans.