The decline in employer-sponsored health insurance benefits isn’t entirely bad news. When our health insurance coverage is linked to our employment, our career options and mobility are limited. We must eventually escape from this trap. The robust enrollment in the ACA is a good sign. I think we are just beginning to see the ripple effects of the Great Resignation. I hope we see increased wages and salaries to make up for lost insurance benefits as a result of this trend. This is a fragile hope and I’m also pessimistic about the resiliency of the gains made in Medicaid enrollment as you astutely point out. I have no faith in private industry or GOP lawmakers.
Merrill -- great stuff, methinks you got one important thing a little mixed up. The "Private Insurance Stagnates..." chart, I believe, includes ALL private insurance, and that would include the booming enrollment in the ACA exchanges. So if you just had an ESI line here, the number would have been substantially lower and probably declining. Or do you disagree? And keep up your great work -- I love it!
You’re exactly right and I thought about that yesterday. But the data in the annual release in Health Affairs of health care spending and trends (where I got the privately insured numbers) does not break it out that way. And I’m not aware of where I would find the ACA plans' total covered lives (as opposed to individual and family signups), which I would need to back out that number from the one shown.
Thanks for a useful big-picture overview. A couple of points re flat employer-sponsored insurance:
1. In pre-ACA years, the drop in employer-sponsored insurance at low incomes, where ACA Medicaid expansion and marketplace enrollment was concentrated.
The decline in employer-sponsored health insurance benefits isn’t entirely bad news. When our health insurance coverage is linked to our employment, our career options and mobility are limited. We must eventually escape from this trap. The robust enrollment in the ACA is a good sign. I think we are just beginning to see the ripple effects of the Great Resignation. I hope we see increased wages and salaries to make up for lost insurance benefits as a result of this trend. This is a fragile hope and I’m also pessimistic about the resiliency of the gains made in Medicaid enrollment as you astutely point out. I have no faith in private industry or GOP lawmakers.
Merrill -- great stuff, methinks you got one important thing a little mixed up. The "Private Insurance Stagnates..." chart, I believe, includes ALL private insurance, and that would include the booming enrollment in the ACA exchanges. So if you just had an ESI line here, the number would have been substantially lower and probably declining. Or do you disagree? And keep up your great work -- I love it!
You’re exactly right and I thought about that yesterday. But the data in the annual release in Health Affairs of health care spending and trends (where I got the privately insured numbers) does not break it out that way. And I’m not aware of where I would find the ACA plans' total covered lives (as opposed to individual and family signups), which I would need to back out that number from the one shown.
Thanks for a useful big-picture overview. A couple of points re flat employer-sponsored insurance:
1. In pre-ACA years, the drop in employer-sponsored insurance at low incomes, where ACA Medicaid expansion and marketplace enrollment was concentrated.
https://xpostfactoid.blogspot.com/2016/02/plugging-employer-sponsored-insurance.html
2. At present there's some pickup in employers adopting ICHRA, the Trump administration's program enabling all insurers to subsidize premiums in the ACA marketplace for employees on a tax-free basis https://www.alegeus.com/newsroom/alegeus-and-healthsherpa-experience-significant-momentum-for-ichra/
Such important context, thank you.