Description

For sample adults with Medicare coverage (HIMCAREE), MCARETYP reports the type of Medicare coverage. The universe for this variable has changed over time. Please see the Universe tab for more information.

Prior to 1993, MCARETYP is a recoded variable created by the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) and is included in the original NHIS public use data. MCARETYP, like other recoded health insurance variables in the NHIS data, is based on responses to a series of questions and back editing carried out by the NCHS. Beginning in 1993, MCARETYP is based on a single question in the survey.

Definitions

People were asked their type of Medicare coverage only if they had Medicare coverage (HIMCAREE). The NCHS provides the following definition of "Medicare":

For persons who responded affirmatively to having Medicare, interviewers were instructed to ask for their Medicare card. If the respondent was able to provide the card, interviewers were instructed to categorize the respondent's Medicare coverage as Part A, Part B, or both Part A and Part B. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) provides succinct characterizations of both Part A Medicare coverage and Part B Medicare coverage:

In the survey for 1997 forward, interviewers first asked, "Are you covered by health insurance or some other kind of health care plan?"

Individuals who had an affirmative response to the preceding question were asked, "What kind of health insurance or health care coverage do you have?" Respondents selected the appropriate response from a card listing various types of insurance coverage.

Respondents could pick more than one type of insurance and interviewers were instructed to mark all that applied.

Respondents were consistently instructed to exclude private plans that "only provide extra cash while hospitalized," and single service plans were also excluded.

As already noted, people were asked their type of Medicare coverage only if they had already indicated that they had Medicare coverage.

Data Editing and Recoding

During the course of data editing, the NCHS discovered many errors in the responses to questions about insurance coverage. Often, respondents misclassified the type of insurance they had.

Accordingly, the NCHS created a series of recoded insurance variables. For these recoded insurance variables, the data are back edited, taking into account such factors as the proper classification of the verbatim names of insurance plans and responses to questions about why insurance coverage had stopped.

Because of the errors in the respondents' original (unedited) answers to questions about insurance coverage, the NCHS strongly advises analysts to use these recoded insurance variables as a more reliable source of information about the types of insurance coverage than is provided by respondents' original and unedited answers.

Only persons having an affirmative response to the recoded Medicare coverage variable, HIMCAREE, were included in the universe of MCARETYP.

Comparability

The basic meaning and universe for this variable are consistent over time. However, comparability may be limited by changes in the questions used to gather the information used for back editing the data, and by changes in the back-editing procedures used by the NCHS. Additionally, the NHIS questionnaire was substantially redesigned in 2019 to introduce a different data collection structure and new content. For more information on changes in terminology, universes, and data collection methods beginning in 2019, please see the user note.

Universe

Availability

• 1980, 1982-1984, 1986, 1989, 1993-2023

Weights

• 1980, 1982, 1984, 1986, 1989, 1994-2018 : PERWEIGHT
• 1983, 1993, 2019-2023 : SAMPWEIGHT