Health Policy Center Authors

Publications by Emily Greenman for Health Policy Center

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We compare three methods that policies seeking to expand health insurance coverage could use to target uninsured people in working families – poverty, hourly wages, and employment in a small firm. We make pair wise comparisons among these, and find that targeting by poverty is most effective and efficient. A poverty-based method is also the most effective way to target those lacking access to employer-sponsored insurance (ESI) and those with low take-up of ESI. When we examine the effectiveness of targeting by family type, we find that marital status and number of workers in the family makes little difference once we control for the presence of children and poverty level. (Health Affairs 2002 July/August; 21(4): 246-254).

The report provides a detailed picture of the uninsured working population, based on analyses of 1999 Current Population Survey data and a survey of the literature on the working uninsured. Among the workers more likely to lack health insurance: workers in small firms; retail workers; construction workers; service workers; low-wage workers; part-time workers; short-tenure workers; and workers who live in low-income households. A little over half (52 percent) of uninsured workers’ employers do not sponsor health insurance; 27 percent are not eligible for their employer’s plan; and 21 percent decline the coverage they are offered at work. The report discusses the implications of the findings for designing and targeting policies to expand health coverage among workers. (Published by The Urban Institute and the W.K. Kellogg Foundation; 2001 August.)

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