The decline in the share of workers with employer-provided health care, the dramatic increase in the number of workers losing their health insurance along with their jobs, plus reports that employers are planning to shift even more health costs to workers, highlights the desperate need for comprehensive health care reform for all.

According to a new report by the Center for American Progress (CAP), the percentage of workers with employer-provided health care dropped from more than 64 percent in 1999 to just over 59 percent in 2007.

Forty-six million Americans lacked health care coverage in 2007, when the national employment level peaked and before the current economic recession officially began. Today, that number is markedly higher as many workers who have lost their jobs have also lost their employer-provided health insurance.

The report estimates that with the economy shedding 5.1 million jobs in the past 15 months,

2.4 million workers have lost the health coverage their jobs provided since the start of the recession?.The rapid loss of health coverage demonstrates the fundamental instability of health insurance protections in our current system and the need for comprehensive health reform.

The CAP report breaks down the number of workers who have lost jobs and health coverage by industry/occupation and by gender. Manufacturing workers bore the greatest burden of losses in coverage, followed by business/professionals services and construction. Looking at vanishing health care coverage by gender, the report finds:

Men are more likely to have employer-provided health insurance than their female counterparts in industries where both men and women are employed. This, in conjunction with the fact that male-dominated industries such as construction and manufacturing have fared worse in this recession than female-dominated industries, has exacerbated the impact of job loss on health coverage.

But the 2.4 million workers who may have lost coverage is only part of the picture, the report says.

The estimates, however, do not reflect the full extent of health coverage loss due to lost employment. They include only individuals who receive coverage directly from an employer, not those who receive coverage through a family member or spouse's employer. Estimates for the rise in the number of uninsured are therefore a conservative estimate of the number affected, since it leaves out spouses and children who may have also lost coverage as a result of a spouse or parent losing their jobs.

Meanwhile, workers who continue to receive their health care coverage through their employer are likely to face even higher costs in the coming years. While higher co-payments, premiums and other expenses continue to take bigger chunks of workers? pay, the Wall Street Journal's Health Blog reports that a new survey finds that

nearly half of the companies polled plan to shift more health costs to employees in 2010?.One-fifth of the companies said they planned to add or switch to a high-deductible or ?consumer-directed? health plan with a health savings account, perhaps doubling the percentage of employers who offer such plans.

The CAP report notes that President Obama says that health care reform is not just a moral imperative but it is

a fiscal imperative?.If we want to create jobs and rebuild our economy, then we must address the crushing cost of healthcare this year.