News Notes: Study Finds No Increase In Workers Covered By Health Insurance

Despite the prosperity of the late 1990s, the number of workers covered by employer-sponsored health care insurance did not grow. The Center for Studying Health System Change found about three-quarters of people under age 65 were covered by employer-sponsored health care in 2001, the same as in 1997. In 2001, 75.6 percent of workers had insurance through an employer, 8.4 percent declined offered insurance because they couldn’t afford their share of the premium and 16 percent were not offered insurance.