Codes

This variable is not available for any of the currently selected samples.

Description

WHOELSOI specifies what persons, besides the policyholder, were covered by "other" health insurance during the previous calendar year. For 1980-1987, CPS interviewers asked about insurance coverage through an employment-based group plan, Medicare, Medicaid, CHAMPUS or other military health care, and then "any other health insurance plan" (other than accident and disability insurance).

If a person age 15 and older reported "other" insurance coverage, a follow-up question probed for information about who else was covered by the policyholder's plan. The Census Bureau coded the information into five categories: "NIU"; "Spouse also covered"; "Children also covered"; "Spouse and children also covered"; "No one else covered"; "Other combinations." The information is included on the record of the policyholder.

Information collected in the WHOELSOI variable was used by the Census Bureau to allocate other health insurance coverage to co-resident dependents, including children, in the HIOTHER variable. If researchers are interested in who had insurance coverage of a particular type, they may find the HIOTHER variable easiest to use; if they are interested in the scope of other insurance policies, they may wish to analyze the data in WHOELSGH.

Comparability

User Note: For a set of variables that addresses many of the comparability issues in the CPS health insurance measures, see the summary health insurance variables created by the University of Minnesota's State Health Access Data Assistance Center.

This variable is comparable over time.

For 1988-1994, CPS interviewers asked whether any member of the household age 15 and older was covered by a "private health insurance plan," a category which included both employment-based and privately-purchased insurance (but not government insurance programs). Subsequent questions elicited information about whether such private insurance was in the respondent's own name, whether the private insurance was employment-based, and, for those individuals who reported such insurance in their own names, who else was covered by the insurance plan. This final information overlaps with the data in WHOELSOI but is not entirely comparable with WHOELSOI. First, the persons receiving insurance as dependents could have been covered by either employment-based or privately-purchased ("other") insurance. Second, information was collected separately on dependent coverage for children inside and outside the household, as well as on coverage for a spouse, others, or the policyholder only. Finally, the responses were coded into separate variables: PHISELF (coverage for the policyholder only); PHISPOUS (coverage for the policyholder's spouse); PHIHHKID (coverage for children in the household); PHINHKID (coverage for children outside the household); and PHIOTHR (coverage for others).

Beginning in 1996, other health insurance variables were used to gather the information covered by the WHOELSOI variable in previous years. These include HCOVPRIV, which indicates whether the respondent was a policyholder for privately-purchased insurance, and INHCOVLY, which indicates whether the respondent was covered by Indian Health Care coverage during the previous calendar year. Because the meaning of the residual "any other health care plan" in WHOELSOI is somewhat ambiguous, the information available in these variables may overlap with the data available in WHOELSOI, but it is not directly and entirely comparable with WHOELSOI.

Universe

Flags

Unharmonized Variables

• UH_WHOHI_A1
• UH_WHOHI_A2