More US workers turn down costly health coverage

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A growing number of American workers
at companies offering health insurance are turning it down
because of a steep 42 percent jump in recent premiums, a
non-partisan health think tank said on Thursday.

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation said 3 million fewer
U.S. workers eligible for employer-sponsored health insurance
enrolled in 2003, compared with 1998.

“This report should be as alarming to Congress as it is to
the American people because employer-sponsored health insurance
is the backbone of America’s health care system,” said Dr. Risa
Lavizzo-Mourey, chief executive of the foundation.

“As costs go up, fewer individuals and families have
insurance and fewer businesses can afford to provide coverage
for their employees.”

The national increase in individual premiums during the
five-year period was $1,027, or from $2,454 in 1998 dollars
adjusted for inflation to $3,481 in 2003. That is a 42 percent
increase, the foundation said.

Employers, who pay the majority of health insurance costs
for their workers, are also seeing a substantial increase in
costs. In both 1998 and in 2005, employers paid 82 percent of
the annual premium cost for their workers’ health coverage, it
said.

“As health care costs rise, large and small companies are
finding it hard to offer affordable health insurance,” Lavizzo-
Mourey said.

Nationwide, 80.3 percent of eligible private-sector workers
enrolled in their company’s health insurance in 2003, down 5
percent from 1998, the group said. States such as New Jersey
and Nebraska had steeper, double-digit declines.