Of the 48million people who will be affected by a job loss this year, 34%have insurance through a family member's job, while 27% are coveredby Medicaid or CHIP. (Photo: Shutterstock)

The COVID-19 pandemic has wreaked havoc on nearly every aspectof our health care system, including the group insurance market. Asunemployment levels soar, an estimated 10.1 million people willlose their employer-sponsored insurance, according to a recent analysis from the Robert Wood JohnsonFoundation and the Urban Institute.

This number is just a drop in the bucket, representing justone-fifth of the total unemployed population. "The COVID-19recession has disproportionately affected the lowest-paid workers,who are the least likely to have work-based health insurance," saidKatherine Hempstead, senior policy advisor at the Robert WoodJohnson Foundation. "The loss of jobs and coverage associated withthe pandemic is a huge test for our safety net, but it may not bethe inflection point for the employer market that manypredicted."

Related: If ever there was a time to rethinkemployer-sponsored health plans, this is it

Of the 48 million people who will be affected by a job loss thisyear, 34% have insurance through a family member's job, while 27%are covered by Medicaid or the Children's Health Insurance Program(CHIP). Just 5% are enrolled in a non-group insurance plan, and 10%are uninsured, according to the analysis.

Overall, employer-sponsored health insurance enrollment isestimated to drop by 7.3 million, as many of those who lose theircurrent coverage will switch to a family member's plan. As noted byother studies, many of those who lose their insurance will opt toenroll in Medicaid or purchase a plan on the ACA exchanges, andsome will simply go without, adding to the current uninsured rate.According to the study, the uninsured rate is estimated to hit 9.2%in states that have expanded Medicaid, and 15.6% in states thathave not.

"Our analysis projects that the ACA health insurance safety netis working as intended in states that expanded Medicaideligibility, better protecting people from uninsurance," thestudy's authors write. "People living in states that have refusedto expand Medicaid, however, are less protected."

The authors note that some factors not included in their modelmay affect the final outcome. These include instances whereemployers have continued to pay for furloughed workers' healthinsurance or worked with insurers to extend coverage.

Read more: 

• Despite strong economy, uninsured rate spiked in2017 and 2018
• Insuring the uninsured during the COVID-19pandemic
• 5 cities with the biggest, smallest increases inpost-pandemic unemployment rates