Selection and Costs for Employer-Sponsored Health Insurance in the Private Sector, 2013 versus 2012

Health insurance provided by employers is a key source of coverage for both employees and their families. In 2013, 56.3 million of the 113.9 million employees in the private sector of the U.S. economy enrolled in health insurance coverage sponsored by their employers according to the Insurance Component of the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey. While not all employers offer all types of coverage, health insurance can be broken into three broad categories-single coverage (employee only), employee-plus-one coverage (employee, plus only one family member), and family coverage (employee, plus one or more family members). When offered for the same health insurance plan, employee-plus-one coverage has a higher premium than single coverage but a lower premium than family coverage. This Statistical Brief presents statistics on the selection and cost of all three types of coverage for employer-sponsored health insurance in the private sector in 2013, and compares the 2013 results to those for 2012. Only differences that are statistically significant at the 0.05 significance level are discussed in the text.