American health care workers are losing their health insurance coverage faster than workers in other segments of the economy, the American Journal of Public Health reports (2002;92:404-8). The study, based on results from a Census Bureau survey, found that the number of uninsured health care personnel increased by 83.4%, to 1.36 million people, between 1988 and 1998. By 1998, 12.2% of health care workers were uninsured, compared with 8.4% 10 years earlier.
The authors, from Harvard University, found that 20% of nursing home personnel were uninsured in 1998, compared with 8.2% of hospital workers, 8.7% of those employed in medical offices and 15.9% of workers in other health care establishments.
The report attributes most of the drop to the pursuit of lower labour costs in the private sector: “The profits accruing to chief executives and shareholders might be viewed as a transfer of compensation to them from their workers.” — Milan Korcok, Florida