Lifestyle

Do 50 Million People Really Lose Health Coverage Each Year Because Of Their Jobs?

The moderators kicked off the third Democratic debate with the subject of well being care, teeing up one other spherical of the continuing “Medicare for All” debate. [khn_slabs slabs=”996846″ view=”inline” /]

The moderators kicked off the third Democratic debate with the subject of well being care, teeing up one other spherical of the continuing “Medicare for All” debate.[partner-box] Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders caught our consideration by claiming that 50 million individuals lose their non-public insurance coverage yearly attributable to employment adjustments.

“George, you talked about, was it 150 million people on private insurance? 50 million of those people lose their private insurance every year when they quit their jobs or they go unemployed or their employer changes their insurance policy,” Sanders stated.

That appears like an enormous quantity even earlier than he certified it by attributing it to job loss and different work-related events for an insurance coverage lapse.

We reached out to the Sanders’ marketing campaign to find the idea for this declare and had been pointed to an analysis by the People’s Policy Project, a social Democratic-leaning think tank. That evaluation hinges on a query asked as part of a national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention survey in 2014, plus a bit fundamental multiplication.

The survey requested adults between ages 18 and 64, in 43 states: “In the past 12 months was there any time when you did not have any health insurance or coverage?” In response, 12.9% stated that they had skilled a niche in protection, whereas 11.5% stated that they had been uninsured for greater than 12 months.

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The assume tank evaluation then mixed these percentages and multiplied them by present inhabitants estimates, developing with “just under 50 million people” who had been uninsured for at the very least a part of the 12 months. (It went on to endorse Medicare for All.)

This declare turns into perplexing when you think about the whole variety of uninsured individuals in recent times. In 2013, total there have been more than 44 million uninsured, Americansm under age 65. With the preliminary implementation of the Affordable Care Act, that quantity steadily declined till final 12 months when it ticked up barely to 27.5 million.

A Sanders spokeswoman additionally cited another People’s Policy Project blog post analyzing the quantity of people that depart their jobs (66.1 million in 2018, it stated) and authorities knowledge on the variety of jobs the common employee has had by age 50 (11.9).

The marketing campaign particularly pointed to this sentence within the weblog submit: “This labor turnover data leaves little doubt that people with employer-sponsored insurance are losing that insurance constantly, as are their spouses and kids.”

The CDC knowledge is compelling, to make sure — however Sanders didn’t precisely painting what it stated on the talk stage, nor did he precisely painting the coverage evaluation his marketing campaign claimed was his supply.

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Sanders seems to recommend that one-third of these with non-public insurance coverage are uninsured for at the very least a short while yearly due to a change to their employment advantages.

In actuality, the CDC knowledge exhibits that about 24.four% of adults underneath age 65 in 2014 had skilled at the very least a niche in insurance coverage protection within the earlier 12 months. The query didn’t ask respondents to specify the trigger.

The age of the report additionally poses a problem: The Affordable Care Act’s Medicaid growth started in 2014, and the report surveyed just 23 Medicaid expansion states at the time. Today, 37 states and the District of Columbia have expanded Medicaid, suggesting the variety of individuals with insurance coverage gaps on an annual foundation might have dropped.

And the People’s Policy Project evaluation truly refers broadly to 50 million Americans underneath age 65 who had been uninsured, briefly or in any other case — it doesn’t say these individuals had been uninsured as a result of their job state of affairs modified.

Our Ruling

Sanders stated that 50 million of these individuals lose their non-public insurance coverage yearly “when they quit their jobs or they go unemployed or their employer changes their insurance policy.”

Sanders has some extent that protection continuity is a giant downside in a rustic the place roughly 150 million get their insurance coverage from their jobs. But his declare inflates the scope of the issue.

He took a broad discovering of the quantity of people that had skilled an insurance coverage hole for any purpose roughly 5 years in the past and misleadingly used it to explain a a lot narrower section of the present inhabitants who misplaced insurance coverage due to employment adjustments.

The declare has a component of fact however leaves out crucial info that will give a unique impression. We fee the assertion Mostly False.

This story could be republished free of charge (details). Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders caught our consideration by claiming that 50 million individuals lose their non-public insurance coverage yearly attributable to employment adjustments.

“George, you talked about, was it 150 million people on private insurance? 50 million of those people lose their private insurance every year when they quit their jobs or they go unemployed or their employer changes their insurance policy,” Sanders stated.

That appears like an enormous quantity even earlier than he certified it by attributing it to job loss and different work-related events for an insurance coverage lapse.

We reached out to the Sanders’ marketing campaign to find the idea for this declare and had been pointed to an analysis by the People’s Policy Project, a social Democratic-leaning think tank. That evaluation hinges on a query asked as part of a national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention survey in 2014, plus a bit fundamental multiplication.

The survey requested adults between ages 18 and 64, in 43 states: “In the past 12 months was there any time when you did not have any health insurance or coverage?” In response, 12.9% stated that they had skilled a niche in protection, whereas 11.5% stated that they had been uninsured for greater than 12 months.

The assume tank evaluation then mixed these percentages and multiplied them by present inhabitants estimates, developing with “just under 50 million people” who had been uninsured for at the very least a part of the 12 months. (It went on to endorse Medicare for All.)

This declare turns into perplexing when you think about the whole variety of uninsured individuals in recent times. In 2013, total there have been more than 44 million uninsured, Americansm under age 65. With the preliminary implementation of the Affordable Care Act, that quantity steadily declined till final 12 months when it ticked up barely to 27.5 million.

A Sanders spokeswoman additionally cited another People’s Policy Project blog post analyzing the quantity of people that depart their jobs (66.1 million in 2018, it stated) and authorities knowledge on the variety of jobs the common employee has had by age 50 (11.9).

The marketing campaign particularly pointed to this sentence within the weblog submit: “This labor turnover data leaves little doubt that people with employer-sponsored insurance are losing that insurance constantly, as are their spouses and kids.”

The CDC knowledge is compelling, to make sure — however Sanders didn’t precisely painting what it stated on the talk stage, nor did he precisely painting the coverage evaluation his marketing campaign claimed was his supply.

Sanders seems to recommend that one-third of these with non-public insurance coverage are uninsured for at the very least a short while yearly due to a change to their employment advantages.

In actuality, the CDC knowledge exhibits that about 24.four% of adults underneath age 65 in 2014 had skilled at the very least a niche in insurance coverage protection within the earlier 12 months. The query didn’t ask respondents to specify the trigger.

The age of the report additionally poses a problem: The Affordable Care Act’s Medicaid growth started in 2014, and the report surveyed just 23 Medicaid expansion states at the time. Today, 37 states and the District of Columbia have expanded Medicaid, suggesting the variety of individuals with insurance coverage gaps on an annual foundation might have dropped.

And the People’s Policy Project evaluation truly refers broadly to 50 million Americans underneath age 65 who had been uninsured, briefly or in any other case — it doesn’t say these individuals had been uninsured as a result of their job state of affairs modified.

Our Ruling

Sanders stated that 50 million of these individuals lose their non-public insurance coverage yearly “when they quit their jobs or they go unemployed or their employer changes their insurance policy.”

Sanders has some extent that protection continuity is a giant downside in a rustic the place roughly 150 million get their insurance coverage from their jobs. But his declare inflates the scope of the issue.

He took a broad discovering of the quantity of people that had skilled an insurance coverage hole for any purpose roughly 5 years in the past and misleadingly used it to explain a a lot narrower section of the present inhabitants who misplaced insurance coverage due to employment adjustments.

The declare has a component of fact however leaves out crucial info that will give a unique impression. We fee the assertion Mostly False.

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