As legislators snapped at each other over health care, a new study showed that several of Connecticut”™s largest employers had sharp increases in workers going onto the state”™s insurance plan for impoverished families.
On a net basis between 2005 and this past April, the state enrolled more than 1,700 additional Dunkin”™ Donuts workers and family members in the HUSKY A program, more than doubling the Canton, Mass.-based company”™s tally on the list according to a study last month by the Connecticut Office of Legislative Research.
On a percentage basis, Target Corp. had the biggest increase over that span, more than tripling its employees and family members dependent on HUSKY.
The data could point to a trend some health care advocates fear ”“ elevating the benefits of publicly financed insurance programs to the extent that they crowd out plans offered in the traditional market.
Others argue that could prompt insurance carriers to make their offerings more competitive.
Short for Healthcare for Uninsured Kids and Youth, HUSKY provides insurance coverage for families that make below 185 percent of the federal poverty level ”“ an amount equal to a household income of $40,700 for a family of four.
As of June 1, some 343,000 people were covered under the HUSKY A program, including more than 71,000 people in Fairfield County.
In the fiscal year ending in June 2008, the number of people lacking insurance who were hospitalized dropped an impressive 8.3 percent from the previous year, to just above 12,100 total according to the Connecticut Office of Health Care Access.
In addition, hospitalizations of uninsured residents dropped 17 percent in Fairfield County. OHCA Commissioner Christine Vogel attributed the gains in part to the state”™s efforts to enroll residents in Medicaid and the Charter Oak Health Plan, a bare-bones insurance program with relatively low premiums for lower income people.
Walmart was the only company to match Dunkin”™ Donuts for sheer numbers of employees going onto state insurance programs during that period, with 1,500 additional workers enrolling in HUSKY A, a two-thirds increase.
Several Connecticut-based employers were also included on the list, including the Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun casinos in eastern Connecticut, Yale New Haven Hospital, and Milford-based Subway, one of several restaurant franchisors to appear on the list.
According to Walmart, the number of employees lacking insurance increased from 50 percent in 2007 to 52 percent in 2008. The company held its health insurance enrollment between September and November last year.
Walmart has long provided detailed breakdowns of its insurance programs, and they paint a revealing picture for the challenges facing companies with large numbers of hourly and part-time workers.
For the fall 2007 enrollment period, nearly 27 percent of Walmart employees obtained coverage through a spouse, parent or school insurance program; 7 percent received it through Medicare, the Veterans Administration or other federal programs; and 3 percent through a state-run insurance program like HUSKY or Medicaid.
As of mid-May, Walmart had some 9,500 employees in Connecticut across 37 stores and distribution points, numbering it among the state”™s largest employers. Full-time, hourly workers make $12.30 on average in Connecticut, among the five highest wages in the U.S.
Just 12 percent of more than 800,000 employees surveyed in January 2008 said they did not buy insurance because they could not afford to.
“We”™re creating good jobs and providing good benefits for our associates at all levels of the company, from part-time hourly associates to full-time managers,” said Eduardo Castro-Wright, vice chairman of Wal-Mart Stores Inc., in a prepared statement.
In Connecticut, however, adult caretakers equal to 12 percent of Walmart”™s Connecticut work force are on HUSKY A, quadruple the company percentage it cites for state-run insurance programs nationally; the Connecticut figures do not include those employees”™ dependents.
