Citation URL: http://www.urban.org/AmeliaGruber

A bipartisan consensus favors public policy initiatives to expand health insurance coverage. This paper summarizes new CPS data on health insurance coverage for the nonelderly and discusses the issues involved in subsidizing health insurance. We outline a tax credit option designed to diminish many health insurance market flaws. A simple model illustrates that the Administration’s recent proposal for tax credits for nongroup insurance alone is equivalent to a general insurance tax credit (our preferred option) with a tax on ESI. Thus, it runs the risk of doing harm - undermining the insurance that currently covers most nonelderly Americans.

Only 43 percent of eligible families who left welfare between 1997 and 1999 participated in the Food Stamp program (FSP), according to data from the NSAF, mirroring the trend observed two years earlier. Only half of welfare leavers with incomes below 50 percent of the poverty level participated in the FSP, despite the large benefit they can receive. Among former welfare recipients, 70 percent who left the FSP owned cars and 57 percent had moved in the past year, raising the question of whether stringent asset tests and difficulty in maintaining a certified address contribute to low food stamp participation. The findings suggest that food stamps are not providing an effective transition benefit for welfare leaver families.

In the early stages of welfare reform, a variety of studies documented that many families that left welfare also left the Food Stamp Program (FSP) even though they were still eligible for benefits. State studies of welfare leavers also documented low rates of food stamp receipt among those that left the welfare program.

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