Daily News Updates - Health Insurance News

What’s all this fighting about?, Pt.10 – Scare alert assuaged, twice.

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So much for the scare of wiping out private health insurance. So far we’ve shown very impressive success in reaching a formidable percentage of the vast number of uninsured, and done it without wiping out the existing health insurance industry. As to the fear tactic, that employer health insurance would be shut down, the opposite effect took place.

The Washington-based research group called the Urban Institute is nonpartisan. The author of this study was a principal research associate for them and her name is Sharon K. Long. In support of my earlier synopsis, we find Ms. Long reporting, “The entire increase in [health insurance] coverage appears to have been drawn from the ranks of the uninsured.” She finds no evidence that employer-provided health insurance is being “crowded out” by this program. In fact, the study found the opposite.

Even though the national trend, as we all know, has been the erosion of employer-provided health insurance for a long time now and still today is getting worse at an accelerating rate, Massachusetts boasted commendable success here too.

Instead of employer-provided health insurance eroding, as it has nationwide, they actually appreciated an increase of almost 3% from 2006 to 2007 fall to fall. Interestingly, Massachusetts turned out to be the only state in the country where the rate of employer health insurance actually increased over that period. For a more complete background about the trials and tribulations of this effort, please refer to the article series: “Mass Success” and “Mass. Health, A Creator Explains”.

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