Confidence Intervals
Last week, House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp (R-MI)
released a report that included responses from more than 70 percent of
America’s Fortune 100 companies—a report that indicated that those employers
could “save hundreds of millions of dollars a year under the new health care
law by simply terminating health insurance for their workers and dumping these
employees into taxpayer-funded health care exchanges.”
What remains to be known is what that will mean for employment-based
health coverage(1)—and American’s confidence in their health care
system.
This, of course, follows recent arguments challenging the
constitutionality of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) before
the United States Supreme Court—with a ruling anticipated by the end of
June. At which point, regardless of the
outcome, healthcare reform seems likely to remain an issue for the 2012
political campaign.
What remains to be known is what that will mean for employment-based
health coverage(1)—and American’s confidence in their health care
system.
Last year, EBRI’s Health Confidence Survey(2) noted that, in
2011, 57 percent of individuals with employment-based coverage were extremely
or very confident that their employer or union would continue to offer health
coverage. That was down from 68 percent
in 2000, but most of that erosion occurred between 2000 and 2002.
Indeed, other than a one-year dip in 2010 (to 52 percent), the
percentage who were extremely or very confident has remained just below 60
percent. And, for the very most part,
individuals who had such coverage were satisfied with it (60 percent of those
with health insurance coverage are extremely or very satisfied with their
current plan, and 29 percent were somewhat satisfied—see this EBRI analysis,
online here.
The 2011 HCS(3) did highlight some areas of concern. While
more than half (56 percent) said they were extremely or very satisfied with the
quality of the medical care they have received in the past two years, just 18
percent were extremely or very satisfied with the cost of their health
insurance, and only 15 percent were satisfied with the cost of health care
services not covered by insurance.
Moreover, the 2011 HCS also found that individuals have a low level of
confidence that they can afford to purchase health coverage on their own—even
if their employer or union gave them the money to do so.
This year’s Health Confidence Survey (HCS) will be fielded in July,
allowing time for the Supreme Court’s ruling to come to light, so that survey
respondents can better assess and reflect on its impact on their circumstances. In this, the 15th annual HCS, the
issues of health care cost, coverage, quality, and confidence in the future of
the employment-based system are, if anything, more important than ever—and the need
for a clear understanding of the American public’s attitudes on health care
never greater.
-
Nevin E. Adams, JD
Endnotes
(1)
The Congressional Budget Office recently revised
its estimates of the number of people projected to have employment-based
coverage in the future. In a recent blogpost, Paul Fronstin, director of EBRI’s Health Education and Research Program,
said: “As the CBO notes in a footnote for its 2019 estimates, as a result of
PPACA, about 14 million fewer people are expected to have employment-based
coverage (about 11 million individuals will lose access to employment-based
coverage, and another 3 million will decline employment-based coverage and
enroll in health insurance from a different source), while about 9 million will
newly enroll in employment-based coverage under PPACA.”
(2)
The HCS is co-sponsored by the Employee Benefit
Research Institute (EBRI), a private, nonprofit, nonpartisan public policy
research organization, and Mathew Greenwald & Associates, Inc., a
Washington, DC-based market research firm. The 2011 HCS data collection was
funded by grants from 12 private organizations. Staffing was donated by EBRI
and Greenwald & Associates. HCS materials and a list of underwriters may be
accessed at the EBRI website: www.ebri.org/hcs If your organization would like to help
underwrite the 2012 HCS, please contact Ken McDonnell, at (202) 775-6367, or
e-mail: mcdonnell@ebri.org or Paul
Fronstin at (202) 659-0670, or e-mail: fronstin@ebri.org
(3)
Additional information from the 2011 HCS is online here.
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