However, Salisbury noted that the percentage of nonelderly Americans covered by employment-based health insurance continued to grow in 1997 even though the uninsured population also grew to just over 18 percent. Employment-based health plans remained the most common source of coverage, extending to almost 152 million nonelderly Americans in 1997, up from 145 million in 1993, the EBRI analysis found. It examines a number of factors that influence an individual's likelihood of having health insurance coverage and the sources of that coverage. These factors include both demographic and employment characteristics, and often vary by location. The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation is the nation's largest philanthropy devoted exclusively to health and health care, concentrating its grantmaking in part to assure that all Americans have access to basic health care at reasonable cost.
Health benefits are the key employment-based benefit for today's workers.
Health insurance through the work place offers workers and their families benefits that typically are not found in the individual insurance market. For example, employers are often able to obtain relatively lower premiums than individuals because there is less adverse selection and average administrative and marketing costs are lower. Some policymakers and interest groups would like to sever the link between health insurance and employment. This link could be severed subtly by changing the tax preference given to employment-based health benefits. It could also be severed more forcefully by creating incentives that would result in far fewer employers offering coverage or employees accepting coverage.