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'Retirement Savings Shortfalls for Today’s Workers' and 'The Impact of the COBRA Premium Subsidy on Coverage'

Retirement Savings Shortfalls: Recent analysis by EBRI finds that the average retirement savings shortfall is about $48,000 per individual—and that adding nursing home and home health care costs would in some cases almost double that amount.

COBRA: The federal subsidy to help laid-off American workers pay for continued health care through the COBRA program helped fewer individuals than expected—in part because COBRA premiums remained unaffordable for many families even with the subsidy, according to a new article by EBRI.

EBRI Notes Oct 14, 2010 24 pages

Employment-Based Retirement Plan Participation: Geographic Differences and Trends, 2009

New analysis by the nonpartisan Employee Benefit Research Institute shows the employment-based retirement system, while still critical to Americans’ retirement income security, continues to feel the pressure of the recent economic downturn: The number of American workers participating in a retirement plan continued to decrease last year, adding to the trend that began with the recession of 2008 and reaching its lowest level in a decade. EBRI Issue Brief Oct 13, 2010 44 pages

Sources of Health Insurance and Characteristics of the Uninsured: Analysis of the March 2010 Current Population Survey

EBRI’s calculations from recently released data from the U.S. Census Bureau show that employment-based coverage remains the dominant source of health insurance, but continues to erode, declining by more than 2 percentage points last year. Overall, the percentage of individuals under age 65 with employment-based coverage declined from 61.1 percent in 2008 to 59 percent in 2009—its lowest level in the 15-year period between 1994 and 2009. EBRI Issue Brief Sep 22, 2010 40 pages

IRA Balances and Contributions: An Overview of the EBRI IRA Database

This report provides initial results of a new EBRI database on individual retirement accounts (IRAs), which for the first time allows researchers to more accurately measure IRA assets and ownership across multiple data providers, and to track retirement assets as they move through different types of retirement plans. For instance, the EBRI IRA Database finds that when owners of more than one IRA are identified and their assets are combined, their total IRA balance is about 25 percent higher than the unaggregated account average within the database. The EBRI IRA Databases unique in that it can link the accounts of individuals with more than one account in the database, thus aggregating total IRA assets and giving a more realistic picture of their IRA-based retirement savings. Not only will EBRI be able to link individuals within and across data providers in the database, but in the near future it will also be able to link the data with participants in 401(k) plans, allowing retirement funds to be tracked as they are generated, rolled over, and ultimately used. The data security techniques used by data providers assure that EBRI has no ability to identify individuals so that all privacy is assured. EBRI Issue Brief Sep 21, 2010 20 pages

'2010 Health Confidence Survey: Health Reform Does Not Increase Confidence in the Health Care System,' and 'Retirement Income Adequacy for Today’s Workers: How Certain, How Much Will It Cost, and How Does Eligibility for Participation in a Defined Co ..

Findings from the 2010 Health Confidence Survey (HCS) demonstrate that, despite the recent passage of health reform, dissatisfaction with the American health care system remains widespread. Furthermore, while confidence regarding various aspects of today’s health care system is not high, it has neither fallen nor increased as a result of the passage of health reform. Press release. EBRI Notes Sep 15, 2010 24 pages

What Do We Really Know About Consumer-Driven Health Plans?

This report by EBRI provides a detailed summary of what is known about consumer-driven health plans, a relatively new option for paying for medical expenses that first began to appear nearly a decade ago. Consumer-driven health plans (CDHPs) consist of both health reimbursement arrangements (HRAs) and health savings accounts (HSAs). The EBRI report examines trends in offer rates and enrollment, differences in premiums between CDHPs and other types of insurance, and discusses the drivers of the premium differences. EBRI Issue Brief Aug 4, 2010 28 pages

'Coverage of Dependent Children to Age 26 Under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act" and 'EBRI’s Spring Policy Forum: Retirement Income Adequacy—How Big Is the Gap and How Might the Market Respond?'

The first report presents new EBRI findings that the dependent-child mandate under the new health reform law may increase premiums and that estimates of  the size of the population that might enroll in their parents’ employment-based coverage may be understated. Press release The second report summarizes new research and discussion at EBRI's May 2010 policy forum. Press release. EBRI Notes Aug 3, 2010 20 pages