Health Insurance and The Economy

In 2007, more Americans had health insurance than 2006. But what's the outlook for 2008? Not good, says a report from the Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI).

The report released by the non-profit organization showed that the amount of people covered by employer sponsored health insurance plans will probably go down this year. The count of Americans with employer's coverages has dropped since 2000, but at the same time, there was an increase in the amount of folks who had insurance coverage individually.

With a stronger economy, people could afford their own plans, reported the Kansas City Star."The increase came hand-in-hand with a strong economy and low unemployment rates which caused more employers to provide health benefits in order to attract and retain workers, and also may have resulted in more workers being able to afford health insurance," said the EBRI report.

That is not the case right now. Nowadays, the unemployment rate is much higher, and less people are able to afford individual coverage. This is partly because of the economy on the downswing.

That combined with the fact that gas prices and food prices are the highest they've ever been, and people are struggling to keep their mortgages, it's no shock that paying for health insurance is the first to be cut from a family's budget.