By Nathan Welton. San Luis Obispo County is one of the few areas in California where job-based medical insurance isn't on the decline, according to a study from UCLA Center for Health Policy Research.

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That said, some changes are occurring, according to Connie Framberger, who runs a San Luis Obispo insurance agency, Framberger Employee Benefits and Insurance Services.

Some employees' benefits are being scaled down, she said. But some local employers who don't offer their employees coverage are showing interest in signing up with a health plan as market forces are requiring employers to offer benefits in order to recruit top workers and stay competitive.

Statewide, large numbers of people lost their jobs during the last recession in 2001, which means they and their families lost their health insurance.

The layoffs didn't hit San Luis Obispo quite as hard.

Fallout from the recession lasted longer than the economic downturn. Throughout those periods, experts say, the smaller businesses in San Luis Obispo County were better able to weather the hard times.

According to Framberger, larger companies are more likely to lay off large numbers of people by closing entire divisions or plants. But such companies are more common elsewhere in the state, where more and more workers are going without work-based health coverage or are signing up with MediCal.

The study, titled the State of Health Insurance In California, was based on 2001 and 2003 data mined from UCLA's California Health Interview Survey, a questionnaire sent out every two years to people throughout the state.

"Job-based coverage is still the foundation of California's health insurance system, albeit a crumbling one," wrote lead author E. Richard Brown and his colleagues. "The decline in employment-based health insurance in 2003 suggests that the long-term erosion of this foundation will continue."

He said about 800,000 more Californians would have had job-based coverage in 2003 had the economy stayed steady.

The report showed that just about half of all people in San Luis Obispo County are insured through their employer or the employer of a family member. That essentially mirrors the state average. Excerpt:

Source: The Tribune