Employers provide health coverage for most Americans

Kaiser Health News and NPR report on employer-based health insurance by examining the experience of a 49-year-old Californian: "Dave Koenig gets private insurance through his employer and couldn't be happier. As a conservative, he thinks private health care is the way to go, but he supports some changes to the insurance industry to protect patients from losing their coverage. ... his high-paying job doesn't just mean a nice house, he also gets pretty decent health benefits. It's private insurance through Blue Cross — he pays a monthly premium of about $300 for his family's coverage. ... Things weren't always that easy. In the early nineties he was laid off and went without insurance for several months. He says it was an uncertain time and he sympathizes with the millions of Americans who don't have coverage — or could be dropped at any time" (Weiss, 9/28).

Meanwhile, KHN includes a video of Koenig and an explainer on how employer-based insurance works and how it may be affected by reform. KHN notes: "Most Americans -- 162 million -- get health insurance through their employers. Sixty percent of employers offer health benefits, according to a new survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Health Research and Educational Trust. Generally, employers subsidize the cost of the insurance, but workers share the expense through a variety of payments, including premiums, co-payments and deductibles" (Villegas, 9/28).

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This article was reprinted from khn.org with permission from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Kaiser Health News, an editorially independent news service, is a program of the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan health care policy research organization unaffiliated with Kaiser Permanente.