What skyrocketing unemployment means for health insurance

Millions of Americans are losing their coverage — what options do they have?

Health care tidal wave.
(Image credit: Illustrated | Kisada Muanta/iStock, musmellow/iStock)

The economic tidal wave set off by the coronavirus is upon us. Last week, a record-setting 3.28 million Americans filed for unemployment benefits, utterly dwarfing the previous highest week of 695,000 in 1982. All by itself, this will knock the unemployment rate back up to almost 5.5 percent. And the total amount is likely even higher, simply because some people probably weren't able to file by the time the data was compiled and released. This is a staggering number of Americans who have lost their jobs all at once.

For a lot of workers, their job isn't just a source of paychecks, but of health insurance. Nearly half of all Americans get that coverage through their employer. Granted, the working population hardest hit by the coronavirus shock is in lower-paying jobs in service and food and retail that are much less likely to provide health benefits. But the damage to employment is likely to spread higher up the class ladder as the coronavirus crisis roles on. And even for those who didn't have health benefits, the loss of income will likely make getting coverage and care even more difficult when they need it.

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Jeff Spross

Jeff Spross was the economics and business correspondent at TheWeek.com. He was previously a reporter at ThinkProgress.