This expansion continued a longer-term trend that began in 1993. While the overall numbers were released earlier, the December EBRI Issue Brief provides far greater detail about the statistics and trends involving those with and without health coverage. Children, working family heads, other workers, and nonworkers were all more likely to have employment-based health coverage than any other type of coverage, either public or private.
Firm size has a major effect on workers' health coverage.
Persons with a family head working in a firm with fewer than 10 workers had a 32.2 percent probability of being uninsured. Between 1998 and 1999, the percentage of nonelderly Americans covered by Medicaid and other government-sponsored health insurance coverage remained at 10.4 percent. The percentage of children in families just above the poverty level without health insurance coverage declined dramatically, from 27.2 percent uninsured in 1998 to 19.7 percent uninsured in 1999. However the percentage of these children covered by an employment-based health insurance plan increased even more, from 30.5 percent to 34.5 percent, while those covered by individually purchased plans increased from 8.8 percent to 10.3 percent. As long as the economy remains strong and unemployment is low, employment-based health insurance coverage will expand and the uninsured will gradually decline.