Employee Benefits, health care, Health Care Reform, health plans, Patient Empowerment, Uncategorized
by Cynthia Marcotte Stamer

Maintaining Jobs Key To Keeping Americans Covered

Creating good jobs and helping Americans keep good jobs is key to keeping Americans covered by health insurance.

Finding of a study published in  November, 2011 by the National Bureao of Economic Research shows that job losses during the economic recession are a key contributor to the growth in the number of uninsured in America. 

Authors of “the Impact of the Macoeconomy on Health Insurance Coverage:  Evidence From the Great Recession” report that:

  • An estimated 9.3 million adult Americans, the vast majority of whom were men, lost health insurance due to a higher unemployment rate alone during the 2007-09 recession;
  • A one percentage point increase in the state unemployment rate is associated with a 1.67 percentage point (2.12%) reduction in the probability that men have health insurance with job loss having the strongest effect on health coverage among college-educated, white, and older (50-64 year old) men.
  • A one percentage point increase in the unemployment rate is associated with a 1.37 percentage point (4.69%) higher probability that a child is covered by public health insurance. We conclude with a discussion of how components of recent health care reform may influence these relationships in the future.

Learn more about the results of the study and the authors’ perspectives on the potential implications on certain aspects of health reform on this trend at http://www.nber.org/papers/w17600.

 Project COPE: Coalition On Patient Empowerment & Coalition For Responsible Health Care Quality

Project COPE: Coalition on Patient Empowerment & the Coalition for Responsible Health Care Quality  are coalitions of individuals and organizations that share the belief that every American and American organization has a stake, and something to contribute to our ability to find and implement the best options for ensuring that the U.S. health care system provides quality, affordable health care.

Health care impacts every individual and every organization in America.  Consequently, every American citizen and organization including but not limited to health care providers, employers, insurer, and community organizations should take part.    The government, health care providers, insurers and community organizations can help by providing education and resources to make understanding and dealing with the realities of illness, disability or aging easier for a patient and their family, the affected employers and others. At the end of the day, however, caring for people requires the human touch.  Americans can best improve health care by not waiting for someone else to step up or speak up. 

Project COPE urges and invites each individual and organization speak up to help communicate and act to make health care work for themselves, their families and others when you can and share your input to help preserve and continue to develop real meaningful improvements to our health care system by joining Project COPE: Coalition for Patient Empowerment here by sharing ideas, tools and other solutions and other resources. 

Other Helpful Resources & Other Information

We hope that this information is useful to you.   If you found these updates of interest, you also be interested in one or more of the following other recent articles published on the Coalition for Responsible Health Care Reform electronic publication available here, our electronic Solutions Law Press Health Care Update publication available here, or our HR & Benefits Update electronic publication available here .  You also can access information about how you can arrange for training on “Building Your Family’s Health Care Toolkit,”  using the “PlayForLife” resources to organize low cost wellness programs in your workplace, school, church or other communities, and other process improvement, compliance and other training and other resources for health care providers, employers, health plans, community leaders and others here. If you or someone else you know would like to receive future updates about developments on these and other concerns, please be sure that we have your current contact information – including your preferred e-mail by creating or updating your profile here. You can access other recent updates and other informative publications and resources. 

Examples of recent updates that may be of interest include:

For important information about this communication click here. 

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