The Los Angeles Times reports that California's construction workers top the list of chronically uninsured employees. The data was collected from the California Health Interview Survey (2005) by UCLA's Center for Health Policy Research.

The report, analyzed when the construction industry was in full swing, found that 25 percent of construction workers lack health insurance for an entire year. The percentage of construction workers uninsured at any point in the year is 40 percent.

The report suggests that money coming into the industry, due to the federal stimulus, may help alleviate unemployment but is unlikely to lead to a significant increase with Californians with health insurance.

Other professions with high rates of employees who lacked insurance for a full year include the leisure and hospitality industry at 24 percent, workers in manufacturing, transportation, utilities and whole and retail trade at 15 percent.

For construction workers, self-employment and high turnover remain barriers to insurance, the study said. The primary reason construction workers said they did not have health insurance was because they found it unaffordable.

Read more about the report from the Los Angeles times here.

Special Reports /

Calif.'s construction workers top list of state's uninsured

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