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

This study examines the effects of New York’s Health Care Reform Act of 2000 on the insurance coverage of eligible adults using the National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) and the Current Population Survey (CPS). We find a significant reduction in uninsurance for parents but for childless adults, for whom the coverage expansion was narrow, we find no evidence of a significant decline in uninsurance. The paper also explored the feasibility of using the NHIS as a data source for studies of state coverage policy changes, concluding that the NHIS is indeed a sound data source for such studies. Health Services Research, Vol. 42, No. 6, 2007, pp. 2332-2353.

Forty-six million people, or nearly one in five nonelderly adults and children, currently lack health insurance, an increase of 6 million since 2000. Developing effective strategies for reducing uninsurance requires understanding why people lack insurance coverage. This brief looks at the reasons people report being uninsured. We find that the high cost of health insurance matters for uninsured nonelderly adults and children, whether old or young, healthy or disabled, with high incomes or incomes below the poverty level. Further, the importance of high costs as a reason for being uninsured has risen rapidly, growing steadily for nonelderly adults and children.

This paper reports on findings from an evaluation of insurance coverage expansions in California, Massachusetts, New Jersey and Wisconsin. Overall, parents in Wisconsin and parents and childless adults in Massachusetts experienced the largest expansions in public coverage, with little offsetting reductions in private coverage. By contrast, coverage expansions for parents in California and New Jersey led to increased enrollment in publicly sponsored programs, but often with a corresponding drop in private coverage. With constraints on resources curtailing state coverage efforts, the study finds evidence that cuts in public coverage will likely put more adults at risk of becoming uninsured. (Health Affairs Web Exclusive, January 17, 2006)

Return to list of authors