Private Health Insurance: Impact of Premium Increases on the Number of Covered Individuals Is Uncertain

Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on the relationship between the amount charged for private health insurance and the number of insured individuals, and the basis for a widely cited statistic from the Lewin Group that the number of insured individuals would fall by 400,000 for every 1-percent increase in health insurance premiums, focusing on: (1) trends in employers' decisions to offer insurance and employees' decisions to purchase it; (2) the methodology used by the Lewin Group to support its coverage loss estimate; (3) the methodology used by the Lewin Group to produce its most recent estimates; and (4) conditions or factors that could affect the impact of premium increases on insurance coverage.