INDIANAPOLIS — Smaller increases in health-insurance costs helped give U.S. workers and their families a dose of stability last year, according to a new report from the Employee Benefit Research Institute.
A total of 62.2 percent of people under age 65 had employment-based health benefits last year, the same percentage as 2006. In fact, last year’s figure falls in the neighborhood of 1994, when about 64 percent of the population was covered, the nonprofit institute reported.
“We’re pretty much where we were back then, and that gets lost when you hear the sky is falling, employers are dropping coverage, the system is vanishing before our eyes,” said study author Paul Front sin. “Over the longer term, you don’t really see that.”
Frontsin is the director of the institute’s health research and education program. He used recently released U.S. Census Bureau numbers to compile his report. The Kaiser Family Foundation reported a 6.1 percent average increase in the cost of health insurance last year, down from double-digit increases in recent years.
