Description

For all persons, HICOVSTAT indicates if the person had any type of health insurance coverage, including Indian Health Service and single service plans. It also includes those who reported "covered by other plan" as a reason for not having health insurance.

Interviewers asked a series of questions to determine if each family member had any health insurance through Medicare, Medicaid, other public assistance, military health care, Indian Health Service, or private health insurance. Affirmative answers then received detailed questions about the type of coverage. Those indicating no coverage were asked about reasons for no insurance.

If someone is not known to be covered by any of these sources listed above, but did not provide a reason for no insurance, then they were coded as "Not known to be covered, no response to non-coverage items."

Users are strongly encouraged to review the user notes Insurance Data Collection.

Comparability

Apart from changes in the survey quarters in which this question was asked, this variable is comparable over time.

HICOVSTAT is not comparable with the variable HINOTCOVE, available for 1997 forward. HINOTCOVE is a recoded variable created by the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) and included in the original NHIS public use data. HINOTCOVE, like other recoded health insurance variables in these data, is based on responses to a series of questions and on back editing based on plan name carried out by the NCHS.

To compare variables from before 1997 with those after 1997, users may want to use HINOTCOV, a variable created by the IPUMS NHIS staff to improve comparability over time. HINOTCOV combines variables for 1997 forward that were not edited to be consistent with the pre-1997 variables, which were also not edited. However, for 1993 to 1996, persons with single-service insurance plans were considered to be covered, whereas prior to 1993 and for 1997 such plans were generally not considered health care plans.

Universe

Availability

• 1993-1996

Weights

• 1994-1996 : PERWEIGHT
• 1993 : SAMPWEIGHT