Firms covering large majority of nation's workers view health benefits as important recruitment tool

Health Affairs article finds employers support shared responsibility for financing health coverage

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Despite intense health care cost pressures, firms covering more than 90 percent of the nation's workforce view health benefits as an important tool to attract and retain qualified workers, according to a national study by researchers at the Center for Studying Health System Change (HSC) and The Commonwealth Fund published in the November/ December edition of Health Affairs.

Moreover, firms employing two-thirds of all workers, including both firms that do and do not offer health benefits, agreed that "all employers should share in the cost of health insurance for employees, either by covering their own workers or by contributing to a fund to cover the uninsured," the study found.