A Vote of Confidence: Attitudes Toward Employer Sponsored Health Insurance

As the number of uninsured Americans continues to climb, proposals have been advanced to provide tax credits to enable the purchase of individual health insurance. Some proposals also call for tax credits to replace existing employer-sponsored health insurance, arguing that families would benefit from increased flexibility in selecting health plans. When asked, however, American workers indicate that they value having employers as their health plan sponsors and do not prefer to be on their own in purchasing health plans. Moreover, they would favor reforms to expand employer-sponsored coverage or to provide similar benefits to currently uninsured working adults. New findings from The Commonwealth Fund 1999 National Survey of Workers' Health Insurance indicate that the majority of both those currently with employer coverage and the uninsured see the advantage of group coverage—through employers or government-sponsored plans—and prefer such coverage to direct purchase of private health insurance.