As policymakers tackled health care reform in Hartford and Washington, D.C., new federal estimates suggest Connecticut employers continue to shift the costs of insurance coverage onto their workers.
An estimated 343,000 Connecticut residents lacked health insurance in 2008 according to the U.S. Census Bureau, 10 percent of the population. While that was up from 9.4 percent in 2007, it was still the seventh best rate in the country. In the U.S. as a whole, 15.4 percent of citizens lacked health insurance in 2008. Massachusetts was tops in the nation at 5.5 percent after mandating health insurance for residents in 2006; Texas was the worst with a full quarter of its population lacking coverage.
While 17,000 more people in Connecticut lacked insurance in 2008 compared with the year before, a small number on a percentage basis, some 107,000 people lost or let expire insurance via their employers, a “stunning development” in the words of Ellen Andrews, executive director of the New Haven-based Connecticut Health Policy Project.
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Andrews said that family premiums grew at seven times their earnings growth between 2000 and 2008, and predicts premiums will increase 6 percent in the coming year on average.
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“As fewer Connecticut residents have access to employer-sponsored coverage, Congress should support policies that help families maintain their health insurance when they lose or change jobs,” said Sharon Langer, senior policy fellow for Connecticut Voices for Children, in a statement analyzing the Census Bureau estimates.
A survey this summer by the Connecticut Business and Industry Association showed that 98 percent of some 700 companies polled provided health insurance to their employees. In an attempt to control costs, however, 52 percent of businesses have adopted plans with higher deductibles for medical care, while 47 percent have increased the share of premiums paid by their employees.
Nearly nine in 10 businesses reported their health benefit costs increased in the past year, and they expect to absorb another increase in the coming renewal season ”“ more than 10 percent according to two-thirds of those surveyed by CBIA.
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Perhaps incredibly, 41 percent of businesses reported changing health care plans or adding a new plan to their existing offerings. Clients of Health Net of the Northeast Inc. are caught in such a mix as they weigh whether to continue their policies as Health Net sells their accounts to UnitedHealth Group Inc., which owns Trumbull-based Oxford Health Plans.
This past June, the Connecticut General Assembly overrode a Gov. M. Jodi Rell veto to fund the creation of the SustiNet Health Partnership, which aims to provide near-universal health care in Connecticut while attempting to lower costs.
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SustiNet held its first meeting Sept. 2 and a second on Sept. 16, mostly concerning itself with housekeeping tasks such as creating committees and developing initial schedules. A week after that initial meeting, the group had yet to post minutes of the meeting on the health-care advocate”™s Web site.
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The chairs of the SustiNet board are Nancy Wyman, comptroller of the state of Connecticut; and Kevin Lembo, the state health-care advocate. Norwalk Hospital”™s Jamie Gould is leading the group”™s efforts to improve the capabilities of information systems used by health-care providers in Connecticut.
Michael Critelli, the former CEO of Stamford-based Pitney Bowes Inc. who has extensively researched health care and insurance issues, calls SustiNet “fatally flawed” in part because he feels the plan carries a high cost for taxpayers; is not including key stakeholders in the policy formation phase; and lacks coordination with federal efforts.
On the federal front, Critelli assessed the possibility of an employer mandate to carry insurance.
“If the mandate is set too low, many large employers will drop coverage and pay the tax, which will increase the financial burden on the public plan,” Critelli wrote this month on his blog. “If the mandate is set too high, the cost will be a job killer and will drive us back into a more severe economic downturn. An employer mandate can work, but it has to be designed with great care and precision.”
