Thune Says Health Care Often ‘Comes With a Job.’ The Reality’s Not Simple or Straightforward.
“Often, health care is accompanied by a job.”
Senator John Thune (RS.D.), in an interview with Kota on May 30, 2025
Millions of people are expected to lose access to Medicaid and the Act respecting affordable health insurance plans if federal legislators approve of the national policy of President Donald Trump, who is now going through the Senate.
The head of the majority of the Senate, John Thune, discussed health care and pending legislation in an interview with Kota, a South Dakota television station. But he focused on another type of health insurance – insurance sponsored by the employer.
“Often health care is accompanied by a job,” said Thune.
Thune’s comments in the interview were made in the context of the demonstration of part of the GOP economic policy objective. “The creation of these better remunerated jobs that accompany social benefits is ultimately the objective here,” he said.
Kff Health News contacted Thune’s office to discover the basis of this comment. Its communications director, Ryan Wrasse, replied by reiterating Thune’s message: “Getting a job has the potential to drive a worker to acquire health care.”
Paul Fronstin, director of health benefits for health benefits at the employee’s social benefits research institute, said Thune’s comment could also refer to discussions concerning Medicaid work requirements. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act would allow unchanged adults to register for Medicaid that if they prove that they are volunteering, working or looking for or train for work.
Medicaid, funded by the federal government and the States, is the country’s main health insurance program for low -income persons. Some disabled people are also eligible.
Some Republicans relied on the point of discussion of jobs in the defense of Medicaid’s reductions and work requirements. Senator James Lankford (R-Okla.), For example, told CNBC that the bill did not concern the “launching of the people of Medicaid. He goes from Medicaid to health care provided by the employer ”.
But experts in health policy that we have verified clearly indicated that obtaining a job is not a guarantee to obtain insurance sponsored by work.
Insurance sponsored by the employer: the bases
These experts have said that most jobs offer health insurance. But they also declared that the link between employment and labor coverage is not always simple.
“When I see this statement, I say to myself:” I have so much more to say about it. But I don’t have the declaration, ”said Fronstin.
Matthew Rae, associate director focusing on private insurance in Kff, a non -profit organization of health information that includes Kff Health News, has also weighed.
“The coverage sponsored by the employer remains the basis of the way people get health insurance in the United States,” said Rae. “I would say that finding a job is not a guarantee that you will have health insurance. This simply increases your chances of obtaining it. ”
About 60% of Americans under the age of 65 receive health insurance through their work or as a spouse, children or other dependent on a person insured through their work, according to data from 2023 kff.
Among the workers aged 18 to 64 who were eligible but who did not register for their insurance at the workplace, 28% said that the reason they had decided not to register was that the plans was too expensive, the 2023 kff data showed.
Most of these workers have found health insurance elsewhere, for example through a parent work plan. But a small percentage of eligible employees, 3.7%, was not insured.
Health insurance was “the most popular advantage in the workplace” since companies began to offer it to recruit employees in a tight labor market during the Second World War, said Fronstin.
Federal law also encourages companies to offer plans. Under the affordable care law, employers of 50 full -time or more workers are penalized if they do not offer the assurance of most employees that the federal government considers affordable.
Last year, 54% of companies offered health insurance to at least certain employees, according to KFF.
But this is not the main way in which the ACA has helped to reduce the rate of people without health insurance, said Melissa Thomasson, professor at the University of Miami in Ohio who specializes in the economic history of health insurance. “Almost all of this,” she said, came from the ACA creating private market plans and allowing states to extend the eligibility for Medicaid.
Health policies analysts claim that the only major bill would make people more difficult for people to qualify or offer market plans, with proposals that increase paperwork, would shorten the registration periods and allow increased tax credits to vanish. Thomasson also noted that political rhetoric surrounding jobs and health insurance does not always align.
“We are often talking about small businesses that are the engine of job creation”, but it is companies that can not afford to offer work insurance, “she said.
So who is not provided by work insurance?
The most obvious category of people who have no work insurance are those who have no job. This group includes children and retirees, people looking for work, people who choose not to work and those who cannot work, due to a handicap or illness.
Another group without insurance provided by the employer is the 25% of people aged 18 to 64 who have a job but are unable to obtain such insurance, according to 2023 data from KFF.
Some of these people work for companies that do not offer health insurance. These employers tend to be small businesses or part of certain industries, such as agriculture and construction.
Others are part -time, temporary or seasonal workers in companies that do not offer health insurance only to full -time employees. Workers with low incomes are much less likely than those who have higher income to be eligible for work insurance, according to 2023 kff data.
People who are not employed or who do not receive insurance thanks to their work can obtain coverage in another way. Some are assured thanks to the work plan of a parent, while others buy plans and can be eligible for the grants on the ACA market.
Others obtain insurance through Medicaid or Medicare, the Federal Health Insurance Program for people aged 65 or over and some disabled people.
Cost and quality – and therefore access to care – vary
It is not because someone has health insurance that he will get the health care he needs. People can skip or delay care if their plans are unaffordable or if they limit network suppliers.
“The health benefits are of all shapes and sizes,” said Fronstin. “Some employers offer very generous advantages, and others less.”
KFF data shows that bonuses’ premiums and cost sharing expenses have increased more quickly than salaries from 2008 to 2018 but have slowed down in recent years.
The question of whether work insurance is affordable varies considerably according to income. According to 2020 kFF data, low -income families provided through a full -time worker spent on average, 10.4% of their income on bonuses and direct costs. It is more than double the rate when looking at families in all income.
Our decision
Thune said: “Often health care is accompanied by a job.”
This declaration is partially exact. Workers in the United States obtain health coverage thanks to work. But it is accompanied by aspects of the health insurance system to the employment of our country – such as the way in which costs and coverage, especially for those with lower income, can make an employer plan out of reach even if it is available.
Conclusion: Not all jobs provide health insurance or do not offer plans to all their workers. When they do it, the cost and quality vary considerably – make Thune declaration excessive simplification.
We evaluate this declaration half true.
Sources
Kota interview with Senator John Thune, May 30, 2025.
CNBC interview with Senator James Lankford, June 5, 2025.
KFF, “2024 Employer Health Benefits Survey”, October 9, 2024.
KFF, “Responsibility of employers under the Act respecting affordable care”, February 29, 2024.
KFF, “Health insurance sponsored by the employer 101”, May 28, 2024.
The tracker of the Peterson-Kff health system, “What are the recent trends in the employer-based health coverage?” December 22, 2023.
Monitoring the Peterson-Kff health system, “how the affordability of employers’ coverage varies according to family income”, March 10, 2022.
The tracker of the Peterson-KFF health system, “monitoring the increase in premium contributions and cost sharing for families with coverage of significant employers”, August 14, 2019.
Manhattan Institute, “Put employees in health insurance control with” the choice of Ichra workers “on May 22, 2025.
Brookings, “non-assurance rates have dropped considerably as a result of the affordable care law”, July 22, 2024.
Harvard Business Review, “Why do employers provide health care in the first place?” March 15, 2019.
Letter from the Congressional Budget Office on the One Big Beautiful Bill law increasing the number of people not insured on June 4, 2025.
Telephone interview with Paul Fronstin, Director of Research on Health Advantages at the Research Institute on Employees’ Social Benefits and member of the Commonwealth Fund National Working Group on the future role of employers in the American health system, June 6, 2025.
Telephone interview with Melissa Thomasson, professor and health economist at the University of Miami, June 6, 2025.
Telephone interview with Maanasa Kona, research teacher associated with the Center on Health Insurance Reforms at the University of Georgetown, June 6, 2025.
Telephone interview with Matthew Rae, associate director of the health care market program in KFF, June 10, 2025.
Telephone interview with Sally Pipes, president and chief executive officer of the Pacific Research Institute, June 11, 2025.
Correspondence by email with Ryan Wrasse, director of communications for Senator John Thune, June 10, 2025.
Kff Health News, “some employers were testing workers for coverage”, October 2, 2024.
Kff Health News, “Trump’s’` One Big Beautiful Bill “, continues the assault on Obamacare”, on June 3, 2025.
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