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Report: 46,000 Alabama workers will lose health benefits without health care overhaul

(Press-Register file)The University of South Alabama Medical Center in 2007. Two new reports are critical of Alabama's delivery of health care to its citizens.WASHINGTON -- The condition of Alabama's health care system is poor in comparison with other states, according to a new scorecard that ranks the state 40th nationally. A separate study, meanwhile, predicts that 46,000 workers in Alabama will lose their employer-provided health benefits in the next five years if nothing changes.

That second study -- titled "The Cost of Failure to Enact Health Reform," and produced by the Urban Institute -- takes no position on the overhaul bills moving through Congress, but assumes that the status quo remains in place.

The study was commissioned by the nonpartisan Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

It projects the substantial loss in employer-sponsored health insurance even if the economy fully rebounds. Alabama employers wouldnt see any savings, however: The study anticipates that their spending on health insurance premiums would climb about 29 percent by 2014 to $7.25 billion.