More Workers Opting Against Health Coverage

More Americans are choosing not to buy health insurance even when their employers offer it, according to a study that sheds new light on why the ranks of the uninsured have been swelling. The study, published in today’s issue of the journal Health Affairs, shows that the number of people who turned down employers’ health plans more than doubled over the last decade, to 6 million last year. That trend has emerged even as the proportion of workers who are offered insurance through their jobs has increased. About 41 million Americans lack insurance. The study, by economists at the Department of Health and Human Services’ Agency for Health Care Policy and Research, is based on data drawn from interviews with thousands of working adults in 1987 and 1996. It does not examine directly why more are shunning insurance. However, the trend is most pronounced among the poorest workers.