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APHA Scientific Session and Event Listing

Recorded presentation

Steven Cohen, PhD, Center for Financing, Access and Cost Trends, AHRQ, 540 Gaither Road, Rockville, MD 20850, 3014271466, scohen@ahrq.gov, Trena Ezzati-Rice, MS, CFACT/DSRM, AHRQ, 540 Gaither Road, Rockville, MD 20850, and Jeffrey A. Rhoades, PhD, Center for Financing, Access, Cost and Trends, Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, 540 Gaither Road, Rockville, MD 20850.

National estimates of the population's health insurance status are essential inputs to policymakers to inform assessments of the population's access to medical care and analyses of associated health care expenditures. Population estimates of the uninsured can vary substantially depending on the duration of time that defines a period of being without coverage. Alternative criteria that have been used to produce estimates of the uninsured include the following specifications: those uninsured for a given time interval (e.g. full-year, two year period), those ever uninsured during the time interval, and those uninsured at a specific point in time. The Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS), one of the core health care surveys in the United States, supports all three types of estimates. The survey is also characterized by an integrated survey design linked to the National Health Interview Survey (NHIS), which facilitates the derivation of national estimates for extended periods of time and yields enhancements to the conduct of longitudinal analyses. In this paper, a summary is provided of the capacity to derive extended longitudinal profiles of the long term uninsured in America through the linkage of the MEPS and the NHIS. Particular attention is given to the added value of an extended longitudinal profile in distinguishing the characteristics of individuals who are continuously uninsured for a minimum of two years from their counterparts with at least some period of coverage. The stability of these estimates and the profiles of the long term uninsured over time are also examined.

Learning Objectives:

• • Participants in the session will acquire information and perspectives regarding the capacity of the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey to permit analyses of the U.S. health care system including the population’s health insurance experience over the course of several years. In addition, the presentation will provide details of the survey’s capacity to provide policy makers with essential information on the use of, and expenditures and sources of payment for health care; the availability and costs of private health insurance in the employment-related and non-group markets; the population enrolled in public health insurance coverage and those without health care coverage; and the role of health status in health care use, expenditures, and household decision making, and in health insurance and employment. Participants will learn of the statistical and methodological strategies adopted in MEPS to improve the accuracy of resultant health insurance coverage estimates.
• • Participants will learn of inter-departmental efforts in the federal sector that have focused on research efforts and planned improvements to national health insurance data from the major federal surveys. This will include a discussion of the development, coordination and implementation of joint research, analytical, methodological and modeling agenda to improve the quality of these critical measures for policy formulation.
• • The methodologies that are presented have particular relevance as statistical tools to support longitudinal analyses of population subgroups that experience transitions in health insurance coverage over time.

Keywords: Health Insurance, Methodology

Related Web page: www.meps.ahrq.gov/PrintProducts/PrintProd_Detail.asp?ID=717&TABLE='Statistical%20Brief%20#104'&PPTYPE=

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Any relevant financial relationships? No

Recorded presentation