Insurance Insecurity: Families Are Losing Employer-Sponsored Insurance Coverage

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Loss of employer-sponsored insurance is more likely to lead to uninsurance than coverage in the individual market.

Out of fear of the consequences of lost coverage, Americans regularly make life decisions based on health insurance and not their happiness or health.

Once someone has been uninsured for two months, they are no longer protected from being denied coverage for a pre-existing condition – in any insurance market. Given that roughly half of people who go without insurance for more than two months have chronic conditions, this can have disastrous consequences that last long into the future.

Because the risk of having a chronic disease over a lifetime is high, even those that are currently healthy are at high risk for being uninsurable in the future, facing higher medical costs and poorer health outcomes.

The results of a recent study show that two-thirds of the uninsured (68 percent) go without needed care – including seeing a doctor when sick, filling prescriptions, and following up on recommended tests or treatment – and 51 percent of the uninsured report difficulty paying bills, being contacted by collection agencies for unpaid bills, or changing their way of life to pay medical bills.

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