Informing Health Initiatives: Summary of Requests and Assistance Provided, December 2010-March 2011

A summary of requests to the Center for Financing, Access, and Cost Trends (CFACT) for information to inform health initiatives, and of the assistance provided from December 2010 through March 2011.

Source of Request	Request	Date	Staff Responsible	Assistance Provided
Congressional Budget Office	Estimates of private and government sector health insurance enrollment and eligibility, by industry.	12/10	Beth Crimmel and Jim Branscome	Provided national estimates of private and government sector health insurance enrollment, eligibility, and other measures, by industry. The estimates were obtained from the 2009 MEPS Insurance Component.
Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation, HHS	Analysis of benefits for children of Medicaid and Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP)	12/10	Jessica Banthin, Julie Hudson, and Tom Selden	Provided MEPS estimates for coverage, expenditures, and preventive care utilization for use on a paper that would be published on the second anniversary of the CHIPRA reauthorization.
Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation, HHS	Characteristics of people under 133% of poverty for eligibility for Federal Medical Assistance Percentages (FMAP) matching funds for state Medicaid programs	12/10	Tom Selden	Provided “rush” assistance with estimates from the MEPS on how many individuals: (a) have a mental illness; (b) do not speak English as a first language; or (c) are not citizens.
Office of Health Reform, HHS	Use of preventive care by the uninsured	12/10	Joel Cohen and Anita Soni	Provided technical assistance from the MEPS on the use of preventive care by the uninsured.
Council of Economic Advisors	Availability of survey data for evaluating health reform	12/10	Steve Cohen	Provided data from the MEPS covering topics such as the capacity for large-scale surveys to collect the data that will be needed to evaluate key provisions of health reform, and changes that could be made now that would improve evaluation capacity.
Office of Management and Budget (OMB)	Simulation Models and Expenditure Projections	12/10	Jessica Banthin and staff	Provided a seminar for OMB colleagues to enable them to better understand AHRQ simulation models and related research on projecting expenditures. The purpose of the seminar was to help OMB develop its own microsimulation capacity.
Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation, HHS	Estimates of persons who might be denied coverage in the non-group market were they to apply	1/11	Jessica Banthin	Provided estimates of persons who might be denied coverage in the non-group market were they to apply. The analysis was based on MEPS data. Some of the estimates were produced for ASPE on request. For more information, see At Risk: Pre-Existing Conditions Could Affect 1 in 2 Americans.
Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation, HHS	Estimates of the financial net worth of uninsured individuals	2/11	Didem Bernard	Provided estimates of the financial net worth of uninsured individuals. This work follows closely upon the published paper “Wealth, Income and Affordability of Health Care” by Bernard, Banthin and Encinosa, published in Health Affairs. The data used to provide the estimates was the MEPS Household Component.
Office of Health Reform, HHS	Medical expenditures and out-of-pocket costs for the uninsured	2/11	Joel Cohen and Steve Machlin	Provided estimates for medical expenditures and out-of-pocket costs for the uninsured. The estimates were produced from data provided by the MEPS.
Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation, HHS	Employer-based health insurance generosity for selected services	2/11	Jeff Rhoades, Jim Branscome, and Marc Roemer	Provided technical assistance and estimates for the Health System Tracking Project.
Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation, HHS	Assessing the need for collecting new disability-related data to address Federal and State agency information needs	3/11	Steve Hill, DEB Potter, and Fran Chevarley, and other AHRQ staff	Provided detailed responses to disability-related program and policy questions that remain unanswered due to data limitations. The goal of the project is to ensure a comprehensive evaluation of information needs.

Requests for data and publications: Descriptive statistics for all assistance provided are available upon request. Please contact Cindy Nunley at cindy.nunley@ahrq.hhs.gov.

Note: HHS is the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services; MEPS is the Medical Expenditures Panel Survey; ASPE is the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation.

Source: Center for Financing, Access, and Cost Trends, Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.

Page last reviewed April 2011

Internet Citation: Informing Health Initiatives: Summary of Requests and Assistance Provided, December 2010-March 2011. April 2011. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, Rockville, MD. https://archive.ahrq.gov/policymakers/health-initiatives/summaries/ihisum0311.html