According to the American Action Forum, 43 million American workers will lose access to employer-based health insurance coverage because of Obamacare. Critics of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) have warned that the creation of health insurance exchanges, and federal subsidies for people earning less than 400% of the federal poverty limit, practically invites employers to stop offering coverage to their employees, so the federal government picks up the tab. Some supporters of the ACA even celebrate this possible exodus from the employer-based insurance market, figuring it is prelude to a government takeover of the healthcare industry.
What is missing amidst all these claims and controversies is good old-fashioned data. Fortunately, recent research published in the journal Health Affairs provides some levelheaded evidence about what has been happening to employer-based insurance over the past decade, and what we can expect to happen in the future.
The first article was written by Thomas Buchmueller and colleagues, from the University of Michigan. The Michigan team began by analyzing trends in employer-based health insurance coverage in the United States from 2000 to 2011. Trend number one, illustrated in the picture below, serves to remind us that big companies – with 100 or more employees – have consistently offered health insurance to their employees over this period of time, while insurance coverage has been much more hit or miss for smaller firms… (Read more and view comments at Forbes)
