Employees lose coverage as unemployment rises, report shows

{mosads}”Although the link between health insurance coverage and employment has long been known,” report author Paul Fronstin said in a statement, “these data underscore the degree to which employment — or, more significantly, unemployment — rates directly affect the levels of the uninsured in the United States.”

After the recent recession started in December 2007, the percentage of covered workers fell from 60.4 percent to 56.8 percent by May 2008, the report shows. Coverage then continued to decline, to 56.1 percent in May 2009 and a low of 55.9 percent in August 2009.

The percentage of covered workers then began to rise gradually — up to 56.6 percent at the end of the recession in December 2009 — but that trend didn’t continue: The rate was back down slightly, to 56.2 percent, by April 2010. Today’s figures are “well below” the over-60 percent levels seen in the 1990s, the report says.