Despite high unemployment, Mass. private health insured levels steady
Photo | Grant Welker
Few areas of the economy have continued undisturbed through the coronavirus pandemic, but work is continuing on a new residential development on Worcester's Chandler Street.
The coronavirus pandemic has led to the highest unemployment rate on record in Massachusetts, but so far that hasn't led to a major drop in people receiving private health insurance coverage.
Private commercial insurance enrollment fell by nearly 35,000, or 0.9%, from March to May, according to a report from the Center for Health Information and Analysis, a Boston-based independent state agency monitors health spending and other data. More than 4 million Massachusetts residents get their health insurance through such private plans, in a state with the nation's lowest rate of uninsured residents.
That's a stark difference from federal labor data that shows unemployment ballooning in Massachusetts during that time: from 106,900 in March to 586,500 in May. The state's unemployment rate of 17.5% in June was the nation's worst, and the worst since such record-keeping began in Massachusetts. It was 2.8% in March.
CHIA's report, the first such monthly look it's providing into enrollment data, said employment-connected insurance didn't fall as significantly as unemployment claims rose nationally, either. Factors that could account for that, the agency said, include some who may have maintained their coverage while furloughed. Some may have had coverage through a family member's plan or shifted to another member's plan, or signed up for insurance through COBRA, a federal program allowing for a continuation of job-based insurance.
Enrollment in MassHealth, the state's program for Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Program, rose 3% from March to May. Enrollment in Medicare was essentially unchanged.
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