Walmart, Dunkin’ Donuts, Stop & Shop, McDonald’s, and the First Student transportation company employ the most workers whose families rely on the state’s HUSKY health insurance program for low-income children and their parents, according to a report by the nonpartisan Office of Legislative Research.
The report identified the 25 companies with the most employees who receive coverage for themselves or their children through the HUSKY Medicaid program, which covers families that earn up to 185 percent of the poverty level, or $34,280 for a family of three. A person working fulltime at minimum wage, $8.25 an hour, would earn $17,160 a year.
It’s not clear how many households covered by HUSKY include at least one working adult, but HUSKY recipients enrolled in the program as of May 24 listed thousands of individual employers. That month, there were 394,623 people in the program, of whom nearly two thirds were children or teens.
Overall, the top 25 employers accounted for nearly 28,000 HUSKY recipients, although the report notes that the number of children might be overstated. As an employer, the state of Connecticut ranked 19th, with 583 workers or their children in HUSKY.
The list also included Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun casinos, drugstores Walgreens and CVS, retailers Home Depot, Macy’s, Kohl’s, and JC Penney, as well as Bank of America, Shop Rite, and Burger King, Subway and Friendly’s.
Health care companies on the list include Hartford Hospital, Companions and Homemakers, Family Care Visiting Nurse, and Almost Family.
Other employers that did not make the top 25 include Yale-New Haven Hospital, The Hospital of St. Raphael, St. Francis Hospital and Medical Center, Yale University, the University of Connecticut, and Whole Foods. Each had more than 150 workers or workers’ children in HUSKY.
The report ranked individual employers, but noted that local boards of education, self-employed people, housekeepers and day laborers account for enough HUSKY recipients that each group could be considered in the top 25. If they were considered a group, self-employed people would top the list, while boards of education and public schools would be second, and municipalities would be sixth.