Study links losses of jobs, health insurance

Because health insurance and employment go together, this year's devastating job losses have likely increased the ranks of the uninsured by four million people, including nearly 200,000 in Pennsylvania and New Jersey.

The estimate is provided by Families USA, a Washington organization that focuses on consumer health care and supports improvements.

"People who receive a pink slip experience a double whammy," Ron Pollack, Families USA executive director, said yesterday during a telephone news conference about the group's analysis of census and unemployment data. "They not only lose their jobs, but they usually lose their health coverage as well. That's why health reform is so important."

Pollack said bills now being considered could improve the situation by expanding the Medicaid program to people with higher incomes, offering subsidies for some individuals who need to buy insurance on their own, and placing limits on out-of-pocket costs.

Sixty-two percent of working-age Americans get insurance through their job or the job of a family member.

Families USA estimated that 99,500 people in New Jersey and 98,500 in Pennsylvania lost insurance this year because of a job loss.

Eliot Fishman, director of policy for the New Jersey Department of Health and Senior Services, questioned the numbers for his state. New Jersey is a rare state that has expanded access to low-cost coverage for parents of children who qualify for the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP.) The number of uninsured residents fell in New Jersey last year, Fishman said, bucking national trends. The state has added 65,000 parents to its FamilyCare program since June 2008.

Kim Bailey, senior health-policy analyst for Families USA, agreed that, because of that program, the New Jersey estimate likely was too high.

Fishman said he agreed with Pollack's conclusion that "we need health reform."

Rosanne Placey, a spokeswoman for the Pennsylvania Department of Insurance, said she was not in a position to question the numbers. She said a report earlier this year found that the "lion's share" of people with private insurance in the state received it through work. Those who cannot face few and costly alternatives.

Pennsylvania's Adult Basic insurance program for low-income adults, which now covers 42,000 people, has not expanded, but the waiting list to get into the program is booming: It is up by 200,000 in a year, Placey said.

Families USA based its analysis on an Urban Institute study that found that for every percentage-point increase in the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate, the percentage of uninsured adults under 65 grew 0.59 of a percentage point. That report was completed before federal subsidies making insurance purchases through COBRA more affordable went into effect. The federal program allows some workers to buy the insurance they had gotten from their employer before they lost their jobs.

That has increased the number of people buying insurance through COBRA, she said, but many workers who lose their jobs do not qualify for COBRA. The Families USA report does not calculate insurance coverage for discouraged workers who have given up looking for a job, which likely would increase the numbers significantly, she said.

She said she was confident the report did not overestimate the number of people without insurance.

In related news, a new survey done in September by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation found that a third of Americans worried about losing their health insurance, up from 29 percent in August and 21.6 percent in April.

More than half were worried about being able to pay for care if they became seriously ill.