Codes and Frequencies
Description
HISTATE indicates whether a person had health insurance coverage from a State-sponsored health plan. The Field Representative's Manual for 1997 forward defined this type of insurance plan as "any other health care coverage run by a specific state, including public assistance programs other than Medicaid that pay for health care."
The names of the health care programs run by states differed from state to state. For 1999 forward, interviewers also supplied respondents with cards listing the state names for Medicaid, CHIP, State sponsored, and other government programs.
HISTATE is different from HISTATEE in that it is not edited to reflect any errors in a person's report of insurance type. HISTATEE is a recoded variable created by the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) that has been edited for accuracy of coverage type based on plan name.
Data Editing and Recoding
During the course of data editing, the NCHS discovered errors in the responses to questions about insurance coverage. Respondents sometimes misclassified the type of insurance they had. This might be shown, for example, by a mismatch between the verbatim name of an insurance plan and the type of insurance coverage the person selected from the categories on the card. NCHS created a series of recoded insurance variables, such as HISTATEE, which is the edited variable corresponding to HISTATE. 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 about their insurance type.
Comparability
Apart from small changes in the universe, the basic meaning of this variable is consistent over time. Comparability may be reduced by changes in other response categories listed on the card and substantial questionnaire changes introduced in 2019.
The "other" in the HISTATE definition must be interpreted as "other than" other public programs from which the respondent could choose. Respondents were handed a card with insurance types listed on it and asked to pick which one(s) they had. The types of public programs listed on the card changed over time. For all years, respondents could pick some form of private insurance, Medicaid, Medicare, some form of military health care, and "other government program." For 1999 forward, they could also pick Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) and "no coverage of any type." From 1999-2018 respondents could also select single service plans.
As described in the variable description, the NCHS strongly advises analysts to use the recoded variables (HISTATEE).
During the course of data editing, the NCHS discovered errors in the responses to questions about insurance coverage. Respondents sometimes misclassified the type of insurance they had. This might be shown, for example, by a mismatch between the verbatim name of an insurance plan and the type of insurance coverage the person selected from the categories on the card. NCHS created a series of recoded insurance variables, such as HISTATEE, which is the edited variable corresponding to HISTATE. 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 about their insurance type.
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
- 1997-1999: All persons who are covered by some type of health care plan.
- 2000-2018: All persons.
- 2019-2023: Sample adults age 18+ and sample children age 0-17.
Availability
- 1997-2023
Weights
- 1997-2018 : PERWEIGHT
- 2019-2023 : SAMPWEIGHT
