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September 26, 2011 at 11:49 AM
The number of Americans without health care coverage is rising. This isnt surprising, given the seemingly endless rounds of layoffs: fewer employees means fewer people covered under employer-sponsored plans. The 2010 Census revealed that the number of U.S. residents covered by their employers fell 0.9 percent from 2009 to 2010, to approximately 169 million.
This number has been dropping steadily for some time now. In 1987, the first year The Census Bureau began recording health insurance enrollee numbers, 62.1 percent of the population was enrolled in a public employer-sponsored plan. In 2010, after that 0.9 percent decline, just 55.3 percent of the population was enrolled in a public plan through their jobs.
In response, the percentage of citizens with privately purchased health insurance (individual coverage, family coverage, or coverage bought through an association) is growing, though not enough to account for the employer-sponsored decline. In 2010, the number increased by about 3.6 percent, to 30 million enrollees. The number of members in military or civilian government plans increased 1.9 percent, to 95 million.
