Private Health Care Coverage
Private health insurance may be purchased on a group basis (e.g., by a firm to cover its employees) or purchased by individual consumers. Most Americans with private health insurance receive it through an employer-sponsored program. According to the United States Census Bureau, some 60% of Americans are covered through an employer, while about 9% purchase health insurance directly.
The US has a joint federal/state system for regulating insurance, with the federal government ceding primary responsibility to the states under the McCarran-Ferguson Act. States regulate the content of health insurance policies and often require coverage of specific types of medical services or health care providers. State mandates generally do not apply to the health plans offered by large employers, due to the preemption clause of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act.
Read more about this topic: Health Insurance In The United States
Famous quotes containing the words private, health and/or care:
“To love one person with a private love is poor and miserable: to love all is glorious.”
—Thomas Traherne (1636–1674)
“Self-esteem is as important to our well-being as legs are to a table. It is essential for physical and mental health and for happiness.”
—Louise Hart (20th century)
“We Americans are supposed to be overly concerned about the child. But actually the intelligent care of children in our society is balanced by a crass indifference to the helplessness of infancy and youth. Cruelty to children has become more widespread but less noticed in the general unrest, the constant migration, the family disintegration, and the other manifestations of a civilization that has been torn away from its original moorings.”
—Agnes E. Meyer (1887–1970)