CFCE Blog

UCLA Health Center study on uninsured overhyped

By Loren Kaye
Posted 7/26/2007

A recently-released study by the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research decries the erosion of employer-based health insurance, but its numbers don't match its dire warnings.

The major claim in the study is that "employment-based insurance, especially family coverage, is in frail health and this condition may be irreversible."  The Governor has echoed these claims to support his health care proposal.

But this sensational conclusion is contradicted by the Center's own data:

• The ranks of the uninsured have dropped since early this decade.  Between 2001 and 2005, the proportion of Californians who are uninsured dropped by two percentage points, from about 22% to 20%.  A half million more Californians had health care coverage in 2005 than would hav if the 2001 rate had remained the same.
• The share of Californians covered by employer-provided insurance has gone down, but this is almost all because children in low- and moderate-income families have moved from employer coverage to public insurance.  More than 600 thousand more adults had employer coverage in 2005 than in 2001 (about the same share of the population), and self-insured working families have also increased their coverage rates.
• Children's coverage rates have dramatically increased.  Almost nine of ten children have private or public health care coverage, and of the million children without coverage, according to UCLA, more than 700,000 are eligible for public insurance programs such as Medi-Cal or Healthy Families.

Access to health care is still a serious issue, and uninisured Californians have worse health outcomes than the insured.  But reports of the demise of employer-based coverage are exaggarated and misleading.

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