Two Congressional acts of the 1990s -- the welfare reform law (Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996) and the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) in 1997 -- have profound implications for the Medicaid target population. While researchers and public policy experts have monitored Medicaid since its inception, these recent federal initiatives have heightened the demand for reliable statistics on the number and characteristics of people on Medicaid, both to detect and possibly correct for unintended consequences of welfare reform and to track the success of the CHIP program. Figures on Medicaid, however, vary significantly depending on the survey used to generate the estimates. This session will present findings from an experimental survey (the Census Bureau's 1999 Questionnaire Design Experimental Research Survey) which measured Medicaid participation under four different survey designs. The designs contain key features of several important health surveys, including the Current Population Survey (the survey used by the federal government to generate official statistics on health insurance coverage), the Survey of Income and Program Participation and the Robert Would Johnson Foundation's Community Tracking Survey. Results will focus on the levels and characteristics of Medicaid participants as measured under these four different designs. Attendants of the session can expect to recognize associations between survey design features and the estimates those surveys generate, and to analyze existing survey data and design new surveys in light of these associations.
Learning Objectives: Attendants of the session can expect to recognize associations between survey design features and the estimates those surveys generate, and to analyze existing survey data and design new surveys in light of these associations
Keywords: Medicaid, Survey
Presenting author's disclosure statement:
Organization/institution whose products or services will be discussed: None
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.