Fewer Employers Offering Health Benefits, Study Says (The Hill)

According to a survey by the Employee Benefit Research Institute, there has been a steady drop in the number of private-sector employers offering health benefits to their workers. Despite what some Republicans believe, the survey found employers have been gradually shifting away from offering health benefits before President Obama’s health reform law was passed in 2010. Between 1997 and 2010, the percentage of workers offered health coverage through an employer went from 70.1% to 67.5%, and the percentage of workers covered by those plans went from 60.3% to 56.5%. Between 1997 and 2010, the percentage of workers who declined coverage because of cost increase from 23.2% to 29.1%. In 2010, one-half of workers whose employers did not offer health benefits were uninsured, an increase of 5.9% from 1997.