Description

HCOVPRIV is a variable constructed by the State Health Access Data Assistance Center (SHADAC) at the University of Minnesota. It indicates whether respondents were covered by any private insurance (employer-sponsored or individually purchased) during the previous year.

Some respondents are covered under the policy of someone outside of the household. They are considered to have private health insurance coverage, but not enough information is available to classify these cases as either employer-sponsored or individually purchased.

Analyses of HCOVPRIV must use the weight variable HINSWT.

A schematic diagram of the summary health insurance variables follows:

Comparability

This variable is available for the 1988-onward period and is generally comparable across all years.

In 2001, the CPS introduced an item (VERIFY) to verify that respondents who claimed no insurance coverage on any of the survey items were in fact uninsured. SHADAC used this information to impute the verification question for 1988-2000 cases; those who likely would have reported some type of private insurance coverage (including coverage through the policy of someone outside the home) had they been asked the verification question have been coded as having private health insurance in HCOVPRIV.

Prior to the 2007 CPS, the Census Bureau changed their editing procedures for assigning private health insurance coverage to non-policy holders. These changes resulted in fewer people being considered uninsured. This edit was fixed with the release of the 2007 CPS. The 2005 and the 2006 surveys were fixed retrospectively and re-released in ASEC 2007. The Census Bureau decided not to retrospectively fix the edit in the years prior to 2005. They did, however, release an indicator variable that approximates the edit in earlier years. These fixes are reflected in the summary health insurance variables as well as the estimates that the Census produces from the CPS.

Comparability with IPUMS-USA

Universe

Flags

Unharmonized Variables