Today’s chart by Conor Clarke shows the percentage of single workers who are offered employer based health insurance and the percentage which take advantage of that insurance. The chart is broken down by tax bracket.

I wanted to take a look at the numbers for married workers and workers filing as head of household (single parent). Again, the groups are broken down by tax bracket.

These numbers are a bit more intuitive. Health coverage rises rapidly with tax bracket. It then levels off. The 35% bracket has more people with coverage than offered. I assume this is because most of these are two earner households and in some cases only one spouse was offered insurance but both individuals are on that plan.

Lack of employer coverage is mostly an income story. The difference between marginal tax rates doesn’t seem to explain much. Its mostly that those in the very low income groups choose not to take advantage of care. Perhaps this means that a simple health care subsidy will better achieve the goals of universal care than massive reform.

I am also trying to piece together who exactly the “above 35% group” is. I am guessing high income parents with kids in college. This means not only do they face their marginal income tax rate of 35% but an additional effective rate because of a loss in federal aid.

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