Months of Private Insurance Coverage in 2013 and 2014

Months of Private Insurance Coverage in 2013 and 2014

Question:   How did the opening of state exchanges impact the number of people with private insurance in 2014 compared to 2013?   What happened to total coverage months?   What happened to people with private insurance for the full year and to people with private insurance for part of the year?

Data and Methodology:  These questions were answered with tabulations generated from the MEPS 2014 and MEPS 2013 consolidated surveys.

Links to surveys here:

https://meps.ahrq.gov/mepsweb/data_stats/download_data_files_detail.jsp?cboPufNumber=HC-171

https://meps.ahrq.gov/mepsweb/data_stats/download_data_files_detail.jsp?cboPufNumber=HC-163

The surveys have 12 questions, one for each month, on whether the person has private insurance coverage in each month.   The information presented in the tables below involve the total number of months each person has private insurance.

The weighting variables PERWT13F and PERWT14F were used to obtain sums for the entire population.

The Tabulations:  The estimates of the number of people covered by private insurance for k months for k equal to 0 to k =12 in 2013 and 2014 are presented above.

Distribution of Months People Have Private Coverage in 2014
Number of Months Covered by Private Insurance	Number of People Covered	Total Premium Months
0	115,139,705	0
1	1,661,509	1,661,509
2	1,407,623	2,815,246
3	2,145,610	6,436,830
4	2,899,176	11,596,704
5	2,516,247	12,581,235
6	2,451,725	14,710,348
7	2,712,642	18,988,494
8	3,151,730	25,213,840
9	3,917,603	35,258,427
10	4,212,673	42,126,730
11	3,879,306	42,672,366
12	172,344,874	2,068,138,488
Total	318,440,423	2,282,200,217
% Part Year Coverage	15.2%	9.4%

Distribution of Months People Have Private Coverage 2013
Number of Months Covered by Private Insurance	Number of People Covered	Total Premium Months
0	118,939,239	0
1	1,344,466	1,344,466
2	1,639,993	3,279,986
3	2,213,557	6,640,671
4	2,357,049	9,428,196
5	3,015,075	15,075,375
6	3,045,585	18,273,510
7	2,276,879	15,938,153
8	2,759,681	22,077,448
9	3,210,493	28,894,437
10	3,532,361	35,323,610
11	3,737,376	41,111,136
12	167,650,227	2,011,802,724
Total	315,721,981	2,209,189,712
% Part Year Coverage	14.8%	8.9%

Discussion of Changes in Coverage Statistics:

Here are some of the highlights of the 2013 and 2014 private insurance patterns side by side.

Comparing Private Coverage in 2013 and 2014
	2013	2014	% Diff.
People with Private Coverage < 12 months	29,132,515	30,955,844	6.3%
People With Private Coverage all 12 months	167,650,227	172,344,874	2.8%
Total Months of Private Coverage	2,209,189,712	2,282,200,217	3.3%

Concluding Remarks:  2014 was the first year of state exchanges.   The ACA led to a substantial increase in the private insurance market.   However, some of the people that got coverage had coverage for less than 12 months.  

The 2015 and 2016 surveys have yet to be released.   I hope the Trump Administration does not delay or block release of the 2015 and 2016 files.  This information is vital for the ACA discussion.