Premiums and Employee Contributions for Employer-Sponsored Health Insurance: Private versus Public Sector, 2011

Employer-sponsored health insurance for current workers is one of the primary sources of health insurance coverage in the United States. According to data from the Insurance Component of the 2011 Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS-IC), approximately 111.6 million of the 127.7 million civilian employees worked where the employer offered health insurance. U.S. civilian employees include those employed in the private sector and in the public sector (State and local, but not federal employees). Of those employees who worked where health insurance was offered, approximately 33.3 million were enrolled in single coverage, 12.7 million were enrolled in employee-plus-one coverage, and 21.6 million were enrolled in family coverage (data not shown). This Statistical Brief presents estimates, using 2011 MEPS-IC data, of average premiums and employee contributions for single, employee-plus-one, and family coverage. Estimates are for public and private sector employees who worked for entities that offered health insurance, and for employees who enrolled in offered health insurance plans. Estimates by census geographic division are also presented for average premiums and employee contributions for single and family coverage for enrollees in both the public and private sectors. Only those estimates that had a statistically significant difference from the national average at the 0.05 percent significance level are noted in the text.