Health Insurance News

For decades, most Americans have counted on their employers for health insurance. But that system is crumbling, and it's crumbling faster in Arizona than it is elsewhere in the nation. Fewer than half of the state's residents are insured through an employer's plan, one of the lowest levels in the country. The rate of employer-based health coverage is falling in Arizona faster than in the nation as a whole. Job-based insurance took hold during World War II as companies offered health benefits to attract scarce workers. Encouraged by federal tax breaks, job-based benefits soon became the financial foundation of the U.S. health care system, eventually covering more than two-thirds of the population. Rising health care costs and the competitive pressures of the world economy have chipped away at that system. Now, slightly more than half of Americans have insurance through a job, a number that has been declining steadily since 2000. In Arizona, the percentage of residents with job-based insurance fell from 55 percent in 2000 to 48 percent in 2004, according to an analysis this fall by the Kaiser Family Foundation. Almost 1 million Arizonans were without insurance in 2004: about 20 percent of the population under age 65, one of the highest levels in the country. And more than 1 million residents get their insurance through the state's Medicaid program, costing state and federal taxpayers more than $5 billion per year. "We have a real serious problem in this state," said Bradford Kirkman-Liff, a professor of health policy at Arizona State University. "I think the job-based system is clearly no longer viable."