Hmmm…. 45% of uninsureds work for big companies?

Sure, it’s true that according to the latest Kaiser Employer Health Benefits Survey (2012), 94% of employers with 50-199 workers and 98% of firms with 200 or more workers already offer health benefits. These are consistent with the federal government’s Medical Expenditure Survey (MEPS) showing that 96.8% of large firms (defined as workers with 50 or more employees) offer health benefits.

But that’s not equivalent to saying that the same fraction of workers at such firms have health coverage. For example, as of March 2012, the Census Bureau figures show that 13.7% of workers age 18-64 employed in firms with 1,000 or more workers are uninsured even though the MEPS data show that 99.5% of such employers offer health benefits. Thus, when we examine the distribution of the nation’s 27.9 million uninsured workers age 18-64 by firm size, it turns out that 46.1% are employed at large firms.[1]

The logic here is astounding. The companies offer the health care (which is what the employer mandate was looking to expand), but employees opted not to use, which is what employee mandate goes after.

That’s part of the reason that employer mandate wasn’t expected to raise revenues, and why it’s not as integral to PPACA as the individual mandate was (the constitutionality was assessed on individual mandate, the employer mandate was not addressed by the courts).

But it also ignores that some big employers, like say, Walmart, don’t give their employees the kinds of wages or health benefits for all of the employees the way other big employers do, like say Costco.