A large number of children in the United States lack health insurance and may therefore have difficulty obtaining the health care services they need. The State Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP), enacted in 1997 in response to concerns about this situation, gives grants to states to initiate and expand health insurance programs for children in low-income families. To examine health insurance coverage of children immediately prior to the implementation of CHIP, parents were asked a series of questions about their family's health insurance coverage at the time of the survey, including whether it was private or public.