Attitudes Toward Health Insurance and Their Persistence over Time, Adults 2006-2007. Statistical Brief No. 260

摘要

The Household Component of the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS-HC) contains a series of self-administered questions that discern individual attitudes regarding the need for health insurance coverage and its cost. Adults age 18 and over are asked whether they strongly agree, agree, are uncertain, disagree, or strongly disagree with each of the following statements: Im healthy enough that I really dont need health insurance and Health insurance is not worth the money it costs. This Statistical Brief provides a summary of the attitudes adults have regarding the need for health insurance coverage and its cost over the time period 20062007, based on data from the 2006 and 2007 MEPS-HC. A description of the variation in agreement levels with these attitudes for adults further distinguished by demographic and socioeconomic characteristics is also provided. In addition, the persistence in these attitudes toward health insurance coverage is examined. For this report, strongly agreed and agreed responses were combined into an agreed category while strongly disagreed and disagreed responses were combined into a disagreed category. All differences between estimates discussed in the text are statistically significant at the 0.05 level unless otherwise noted.