Newswise — About 66 percent of the nearly 20 million state and local government employees were enrolled in employer-sponsored health plans in 2008, compared with 54 percent of private-sector workers, according to the latest News and Numbers from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.
The federal agency’s analysis of state and local government employee health plan data, broken down by the nine Census divisions , found that:
• The highest average annual total premiums ($6,631) for plans that only covered the employee (single-coverage) were in the New England division of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut, while they were the lowest ($4,560) in the West South Central division – Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma and Texas. • New England employees also had the highest average annual total premium ($16,965) for plans that covered families with the lowest ($12,068) in the South Atlantic division of Delaware, the District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia and West Virginia. • Workers in New England with single-coverage plans contributed more ($1,097) on average to the cost of that premium than workers in the neighboring Middle Atlantic division - New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania ($291).• In contrast, state and local government workers in the West South Central division ($4,048) contributed the most on average to the family plan premium and those in the Middle Atlantic division contributed the least ($957).
AHRQ, which is part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, improves the quality, safety, efficiency, and effectiveness of health care for all Americans. The data in this AHRQ News and Numbers summary are taken from the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS), a detailed source of information on the health services used by Americans, the frequency with which they are used, the cost of those services, and how they are paid. For more information, go to Employer-Sponsored Health Insurance for Employees of State and Local Governments, by Census Division, 2008 (http://www.meps.ahrq.gov/mepsweb/data_files/publications/st273/stat273.pdf).
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