INCOME, HEALTH-STATUS, AND INSURANCE-COVERAGE OF SMALL-GROUP EMPLOYEES IN A VOLUNTARY PURCHASING ARRANGEMENT

The ongoing health care reform discussion has highlighted the problems of insuring small group employees. Several state and private initiati ves have attempted to address some of these problems through the forma tion of voluntary small group purchasing arrangements. This article us es data from one such initiative, Health Care Group of Arizona (HCGA), to describe the income, health status, and prior insurance of small g roup employees who enrolled in prepaid health plans through HCGA. It a lso compares employee enrollees to nonenrollees along these dimensions . The findings suggest that HCGA enrollees had relatively low incomes and that about three-quarters were without health insurance prior to e nrollment. Higher income employee enrollees were more likely to report health conditions at enrollment even after controlling for other fact ors including age. Enrollees were less likely than nonenrollees to hav e prior health insurance but were more likely to be drawn from lower i ncome groups and to report recent health conditions.