Employees opt for dental coverage when offered: BLS
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Posted Aug. 31, 2005 |
By Craig Palmer When employers offer dental benefit plans, the employee take-up rate is high regardless of their income, occupation, residence or employment status. Nearly eight in 10 workers participate in employment-based dental plans if available.
The dental insurance take-up rate for all workers in March was 78 percent, according to a report from the U.S. Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics. The take-up rate is an estimate of the percentage of workers with access to a plan who participate in the plan.
Less than half the nation's workers, 46 percent, have on-the-job access to dental benefit plans, and only 36 percent participate in such plans, says the BLS national compensation survey of employee benefits. But the take-up rate is uniformly high among union and non-union, white- and blue-collar occupations and full- and part-time employees, though it dips to a 62 percent low for part-time workers.
Some 92 percent of labor union employees and three-in-four nonunion workers opt for dental coverage if offered. The participation rate is uniformly high across the country and in metropolitan and nonmetropolitan areas.
Seventy percent of workers in private industry had access to employer-sponsored medical care plans, and 53 percent participated in medical care plans in March 2005. The BLS data set provides comprehensive measures of occupational earnings, compensation cost trends and details of benefit provisions. The report on employee benefits in private industry in PDF format is posted online at the BLS Web site.
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