does "through employment" mean that those 23 people that have voted still have to pay 100% for the premium? I don't think I have heard of any employers not offering some type of split premium.
Actually, 38.1% of Americans of workforce age have no option to participate in or purchase ESI (employer sponsored insurance). This declining trend is continuing. This trend is not driven by companies discontinuing existing plans, but fewer companies offering from the start. This is driven primarily by small business, as smaller businesses are less likely to offer insurance, due primarily to affordability. Following is from Economic Policy Institute Oct 2009:
Overall health insurance trends
ESI remains the main form of coverage for non-elderly
Americans at 61.9% (Figure A). However, this formerly
reliable form of coverage has eroded each year since 2000,
a total of 6.4 percentage points. At the same time, the
uninsurance rate increased from 15.5% in 2000 to 17.3%
in 2008, an increase of 1.8 percentage points. While for
many Americans, a loss of ESI translates into a loss of any
kind of coverage, the aggregate rates of overall coverage did
not fall as much as the losses in ESI. While the data do not
track individuals over time to see what happens to specifi c
people as they lose ESI, it is clear that overall coverage rates
would have fallen further had there not been increases in
public coverage including Medicaid, SCHIP, and Medicare.
Non-group or direct purchase insurance remained relatively
fl at over the entire period, failing to off set the ESI losses.
