Ask three different people how many of California’s residents are without health insurance, who they are, how to accurately measure the number of uninsured, and why there is such disparity among these groups, and there will likely be three different responses. To bring clarity to these issues, the California HealthCare Foundation (CHCF) today released a snapshot report and data guide, Snapshot: California's Uninsured, 2003, and California’s Uninsured and Medi-Cal Populations: A Policy Guide to the Estimates.
According to Jill Yegian, director of CHCF’s Health Insurance Program, "Uninsured Californians are not all the same; they differ widely according to age group, ethnicity, employment, and citizenship status. To help policymakers, the health industry, employers, and others decipher the complex web of California’s uninsured, CHCF has developed a user-friendly report, highlighting trends and demographics."
The snapshot, based on data analysis by Paul Fronstin of the Education & Research Fund of the Employee Benefit Research Institute, Washington, D.C., includes:
- Health insurance coverage sources and trends;
- Likelihood of being uninsured by ethnicity, income, and age group;
- Comparisons with other states; and
- Public program eligibility.
The Foundation plans to update the snapshot on an annual basis.
Yegian added, "Data on the uninsured gathered from different surveys can give contradictory and inconsistent results for a number of reasons, including different approaches to sampling, different interviewing procedures, or variation in question wording."
The policy guide, prepared by NORC, a national organization for research at the University of Chicago, is intended to provide specific advice to people who need to use these estimates on a frequent basis, but do not have the time or expertise to sort out the methodological nuances. The guide focuses on estimates from the national Current Population Survey and the California Health Interview Survey.
The guide also offers recommended approaches to using estimates of the uninsured through scenarios that individuals or organizations might come across in the course of their work, including the need for information related to:
- County or Metropolitan Statistical Areas;
- Comparisons with other states;
- Changes over time;
- Population sub-groups; and
- Disparities in data (SB 2, the Health Insurance Act of 2003, is used to illustrate the challenges of using existing data sources to estimate the effects of policy changes on the uninsured).
Guide co-author Claudia L. Schur, Ph.D., NORC principal research scientist, concludes, "As long as these data are used carefully and thoughtfully, they increase the ability of policymakers to make solid, evidence-based decisions to improve health care."
About the Employee Benefit Research Institute
The Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI) is the only nonprofit, nonpartisan organization committed exclusively to data dissemination, policy research, and education on economic security and employee benefits. For more information, visit www.ebri.org.
About NORC
NORC is a national organization for research at the University of Chicago. NORC’s clients include government agencies, educational institutions, foundations, other nonprofit organizations, and private corporations. NORC’s projects, which include complex survey and other data collection strategies as well as empirical analyses, range across local, regional, and international perspectives as well. For more information, visit www.norc.org.