DOI: 10.3886/icpsr09901.v1
title: National Medical Expenditure Survey, 1987: Policyholders of Private Insurance: Premiums, Payment Sources, and Types and Source of Coverage [Public Use Tape 15]
title: Version 1

description: The 1987 National Medical Expenditure Survey (NMES) provides 
 information on health expenditures by or on behalf of families and 
 individuals, the financing of these expenditures, and each person's use 
 of services. Public Use Tape 15 is the first release of data from the 
 Health Insurance Plans Survey (HIPS), a follow-up to the NMES Household 
 Survey designed to verify health insurance status provided by the NMES 
 Household Survey respondents as well as to provide supplementary 
 information on private health insurance coverage. The Household Survey 
 is one of the three major components of the 1987 NMES. (The other two 
 components are the Survey of American Indians and Alaska Natives 
 [SAIAN] and the Institutional Population Component.) The Household 
 Survey was fielded over four rounds of personal and telephone 
 interviews at four-month intervals. Baseline data on household 
 composition, employment, and insurance characteristics were updated 
 each quarter, and information on all uses of and expenditures for 
 health care services and sources of payment was obtained. Public Use 
 Tape 15 provides information on private health insurance in force at 
 the end of calendar year 1987 for employment-related and other coverage 
 of all policyholders in the United States noninstitutionalized civilian 
 population. There are two data files, one for employment-related 
 insurance and one for insurance that is purchased directly from 
 insurance carriers or associations. Records on each data file contain 
 selected person-level demographic information, such as age, sex, race, 
 and religion of the respective policyholder, as well as characteristics 
 of the policyholder's health insurance coverage and the provider of 
employment-related insurance.
description: The Household Survey sample is a stratified multistage area 
 probability design with a total sample of roughly 35,000 individuals in 
 14,000 households who completed all rounds of data collection. 
 Oversampling of population subgroups of special policy interest 
 included poor and low-income families, the elderly, the functionally 
 impaired, and Black and Hispanic minorities. The HIPS sample included 
 (1) all employers associated with jobs held by individuals at least 16 
 years old in the fourth round of the Household Survey, (2) the most 
 recent employer of individuals not employed in Round 4 who were at 
 least 21 years old, and (3) all sources of health insurance that were 
identified by sampled individuals as in force at the end of 1987.
description: Datasets: 
DS0: Study-Level Files
DS1: Employment-Related Coverage
DS2: Coverage Obtained Directly From Insurers
DS3: Technical and Programming Information and Data Dictionary
DS4: SAS Control Cards
description: Noninstitutionalized civilian population of the United 
States.
description: Records in these files enable linkage of policyholders 
 to the personal and socioeconomic characteristics provided in the 
 NATIONAL MEDICAL EXPENDITURE SURVEY, 1987: HOUSEHOLD SURVEY, POPULATION 
 CHARACTERISTICS AND PERSON-LEVEL UTILIZATION, ROUNDS 1-4 [PUBLIC USE 
TAPE 13] (ICPSR 9695).