WI businesses dropped 645,000 employees from health coverage during decade of record economic growth

So is this what Rebecca Kleefisch had in mind when she called for free market solutions for health insurance vs. a federal law guaranteeing every person health care?

The number of children covered by [employer-sponsored health insurance] plans fell by 10 percent between 2000 and 2009 while the number of adults under age 65 with such coverage fell 9 percent.

Around 645,000 Wisconsin residents have lost employee health care over the past decade. In 2000, close to 80 percent of children, workers, and people under age 65 were covered by employer-sponsored insurance. By 2009 the numbers were closer to 70 percent.

In health there are often significant disparities in the kinds of medical care rich and poor people get, and that is true when it comes to the availability of decent workplace plans, too, which has declined especially steeply among Wisconsin’s lower-wage workers. Just 26 percent of workers holding poverty-wage jobs get health care insurance through their employers today compared to 65 percent of workers in better-paying jobs…” [LaCrosse Tribune]

More at GOPromisebreakers.