Liberal group highlights uninsured workers

For thousands of working Ohioans, a job does not come with health insurance.

Four in 10 uninsured adults in Ohio work full time, according to a report released Thursday by Policy Matters Ohio.

More than 60 percent of those without health coverage are employed, if those with part-time or seasonal jobs are included.

Senior researcher Amanda Woodrum found that employers often don’t offer health insurance to part-time or temporary employees, impose waiting periods for coverage, or require workers to contribute as much as 25 percent of their earnings toward insurance costs, making it unaffordable.

Perhaps it’s not surprising that low-wage employers — think retail or food service — are least likely to provide coverage, offering health benefits to less than a third of their roughly 1.7 million employees in Ohio.

“Given downward trends in employer-supported health care, the public sector can, should and does help pick up the slack,” Woodrum said.

The left-leaning Policy Matters has opposed efforts to repeal Ohio’s 2014 expansion of Medicaid — which has extended health insurance to about 700,000 poor adults, more than half of who hold low-wage jobs. The group also has opposed the state’s request to federal regulators that it be allowed to require able-bodied beneficiaries to work or lose their coverage. Both policies, the group argues, would increase the number of uninsured.

Of 11.4 million Ohioans, about 640,000 were uninsured in 2016, a decrease of almost half since Medicaid was expanded. About 5.8 million had employer-sponsored health coverage, and the rest had health insurance through tax-funded programs such as Medicare and Medicaid or the publicly subsidized health-insurance marketplace.

According to the report, as insurance costs increased over the past two decades, employers have scaled back benefits, meaning that fewer workers are eligible for employer-sponsored coverage.

While the number of Ohio businesses offering health benefits to employees dropped 8 percent between 1996 and 2016, the number of employees eligible for coverage fell 18 percent.

Meanwhile, the number of part-time workers grew from 16 percent in 1996 to 24 percent in 2016 and now is about a quarter of the workforce. In 1997, 20 percent of part-time workers were eligible for health insurance from their employer, compared with 14 percent in 2016.

Costs also can prompt workers to forgo employersponsored coverage. The average annual employee contribution in 2016 was $1,351 for single coverage and $3,969 for family coverage.