Since 2000, a period of generally low unemployment, the portion of the population getting insurance directly from the government rose from 24.7 percent to 29 percent, while the portion receiving employment-based coverage fell from 64.2 percent to 58.5 percent.

These data don't tell the whole story about the decline of employment-based insurance. Not all insurance is created equal. If you're a top dog at Goldman Sachs, your employer will provide a gold-plated plan and pick up the tab, which can run up to $40,000. If you're a clerk at Whole Foods, your employer will offer a low-premium high-deductible policy—which is great for people who have extra cash and don't have much occasion to use health care services. For most workers, the experience is somewhere in between Whole Foods and Goldman Sachs: Employers and workers share the costs of a plan that provides decent coverage.

Economists have correctly noted that wages haven't risen more in this decade in part because companies are paying more for benefits like health insurance. True. But employers have also been passing on rising costs to employees. And according to a new report by Mercer Consulting, companies are planning on doing a lot of that in 2010. If employers simply reupped existing plans, Mercer's survey finds, costs would rise by 9 percent. But according to preliminary findings, "respondents plan to shave three percentage points off their annual renewal rates through a variety of cost-saving actions, holding overall cost growth to 5.9 percent next year." How? The "first line of defense" is "shifting costs to employees." Mercer notes that between 2004 and 2008, the median family deductible for in-network services in the type of plan offered by the largest number of employers soared from $1,000 to $1,850. Translation: Employees who used their insurance plans with any frequency saw their wages reduced by $850 in that period. And it looks like there are more such "cuts" coming. Next year, Mercer reports, "nearly two-thirds of all respondents (63 percent) will again ask employees to pay a greater share of health plan costs." Forty percent say they'll ask employees to pay a bigger chunk of the monthly premium, and 39 percent will boost deductibles or increase co-payments. Oh, and 18 percent say they plan to get rid of "more generous health plan options" as a way to move into cheaper ones like consumer-directed health plans. The upshot: Most people who receive employer-based health insurance will either be paying more for the same plan or be offered a plan that shifts more costs on to them.