Survey finds more Idaho employers offering health coverage

Idaho employers reversed an eight-year decline in workplace health care coverage in 2011, despite the financial pressures of coming out of the worst recession since World War II.

Percent of Idaho Employers Offering Health Coverage to Full-Time Workers
	Single	Family
2002	82%	62%
2005	74%	N/A
2007	63%	57%
2009	56%	53%
2011	66%	61%

The Idaho Department of Labor’s 2011 Fringe Benefit Survey found 66 percent of employers offered individual health insurance to full-time workers and 61 percent offered coverage to the families of those workers, the agency said today. That is 10 percentage points higher than the 2009 survey findings for worker coverage and eight points higher for family coverage.

But while the totals showed an end to the decline in workplace health care coverage, the totals fall short of 2002, when 82 percent of employers said they provided worker coverage and 62 percent family coverage.

Coverage offered to part-time workers was essentially unchanged from 2009 at 10 percent to 11 percent.

More than 900 randomly selected employers responded to the survey, conducted last August and September. The results on a statewide basis have a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

The survey found similar increases in the percentage of employers offering dental coverage to their workers, but there was little change in the availability to workers of pension plans or paid leave in the form of vacation, sick days or holidays.

The overall increase in the availability of health insurance in the workplace was seen among all payroll sizes from employers with fewer than 10 workers to those with more than 250.