If you’re a middle-wage earner feeling squeezed by the cost of health insurance these days, you’re not alone.

A report being released today as part of national Cover the Uninsured Week March 14-20 contends America’s middle class is shouldering the brunt of the health insurance crisis.

In Illinois, the cost of health insurance is far outpacing income and  fewer employers are offering health insurance. And where insurance is available, fewer workers are signing up for it, according to researchers at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

The report, called “Barely Hanging On: Middle Class and Uninsured,” will be available today at http://www.rwjf.org.

Here are a few details:
— Nationally, the  number of middle-income earners on their employers’ health plans fell by 3 million people between 2000 and 2008. Currently 66 percent of people with household incomes of $45,000 to $85,000  have employer health coverage.
— In Illinois, there were 35,000 fewer middle class people with health insurance in 2008 than there were eight years earlier.
— Total costs for family coverage grew by 30 percent to $12,603 between 2000 and 2008.
— Health insurance wasn’t available for  one in 10 people working in private sector businesses in Illinois in 2008.

“I think in Illinois, the big story is the rate of employer-sponsored coverage. It’s down on all income levels, and it’s pretty significant in the middle-income level,” said Lynn Blewitt, director of the state health access data system center at the University of Minnesota, which analyzed the data.

What data also showed: A decline in private coverage and a rise in government-funded coverage and an 8.2 percent drop in median income for Illinois, she said.

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