Recession Drives Up Number of Californians Without Insurance
Since the start of the recession in November 2007, roughly 500,000 working-age Californians have lost their health insurance, according to a report the UC-Berkeley's Center for Labor Research and Education released Wednesday, the San Francisco Chronicle reports.
The increase in the number of uninsured California adults corresponds with a rise in unemployment, an important consideration given the strong ties between employment and health insurance benefits in the U.S.
The report predicts that by 2012:
- The number of uninsured working-age adults in California will increase by 1.4%, or 600,000, even if employment rates return to pre-recession levels; and
- The number of employed Californians without employer-sponsored health insurance coverage will increase by 2.5% if health care reform is not approved and employer premium costs continue to increase by 7.5% annually.
Methodology
The report used research from the Kaiser Family Foundation's Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured and data from the U.S. Census' Current Population Survey (Colliver, San Francisco Chronicle, 4/2).
The numbers include workers who join their spouse's plan or find other coverage. The estimates do not include children or the elderly (Robertson, Sacramento Business Journal, 4/1).
Families USA Will Weigh In
Families USA is expected to release its own study today indicating that 12.1 million Californians were uninsured at some point from 2007 to 2008 (San Francisco Chronicle, 4/2).
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