Codes and Frequencies
Description
For persons covered by a private health insurance plan obtained through an employer or union in the past month, HIEMPLPAY indicates whether the employer or union paid all, part, or none of the cost of the plan. No instructions were given to respondents regarding the definition of "cost."
The 1991 and 1992 Field Representative's Manual defined private health insurance as any type of comprehensive health insurance (other than public programs [already covered by this point in the survey]), including Health Maintenance Organizations (HMOs). Single service plans were not considered to be private health insurance, and those who were only covered by single service plans did not receive the question for HIEMPLPAY.
HIEMPLPAY is part of the Family Resources supplement. All missing data in this supplement were imputed by the NHIS. Please refer to HIEMPLPAYFL to identify those with imputed data.
Comparability
HIEMPLPAY is only available for 1991 and 1992; users who want to compare employer/union contributions to insurance costs over time should use the recoded variable HIPEMPAYR. HIEMPLPAY is included in that recode variable.
HIEMPLPAY is not entirely consistent with HI1EMPPAY (employer/union pays all or part of premium, available for 1989, 1992-1996), since the latter variable refers only to the individual's first plan. Likewise, HIEMPLPAY is not comparable with HIP1EMP (available for 1997 forward), since that, too, refers only to plan 1. For years in which information is collected for each plan in turn, one must summarize information across all plans to determine whether the person has any plan for which an employer/union paid part of the cost. Such a summary of employer/union contributions to insurance payments is available in the IPUMS NHIS-created recode variable HIPEMPAYR.
Universe
- 1991-1992: Persons with private health insurance plans (excluding single service plans) obtained from an employer or union last month.
Availability
- 1991-1992
Weights
- 1991-1992 : PERWEIGHT
