Informing Health Initiatives: Summary of Requests and Assistance Provided, July-October 2009

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 July through October 2009.

Source of Request	Request	Date	Staff Responsible	Assistance Provided
Office of Health Reform, HHS	Estimates of spending on health care by employers in absolute dollars.	7/09	Jim Branscome Beth Crimmel Jessica Vistnes Joel Cohen	Estimates of spending on health care by employers in absolute dollars. The amounts are calculated per enrollee and combine spending for all plan types, including single coverage, employee plus one coverage, and family coverage.
Office of Health Reform, HHS	Provided estimates of number of private-sector establishments that offer health insurance.	7/09	Jim Branscome	Provided estimates of number and percent of private-sector establishments by firm size and State, United States, 2006, from existing tables.
Bernadette Fernandez, Congressional Research Service	Estimates of the uninsured by firm size and family income.	7/28/09	Steve Hill	Provided estimates of the uninsured, infancy to age 64, by labor force status, firm size, and family income.
May Davis, Office of Senator Brownback	Estimates of total Medicare and Medicaid expenses	7/29/09	Jeffrey Rhodes	Provided tables displaying total Medicare and Medicaid expenses for healthcare services in 2006. This information can be found on the Medical Expenditures Panel Survey portion of the AHRQ website.
Meena Seshamani, Office of Healthcare Reform, HHS	Person-level comparisons between persons in high out-of-pocket Health Insurance Eligibility Units (HIEUs) and persons in non-high out-of-pocket HIEUs in 2002-2006 pooled.	8/13/09	Didem Bernard	Provided person-level comparisons between persons in high out-of-pocket Health Insurance Eligibility Units (HIEUs) and persons in non-high out-of-pocket HIEUs in years 2002-2006. The pooled maximum thresholds were calculated at both $7,800/$3,900 and $11,000/$5,500 for multiperson HIEUs and single person HIEUs, respectively. Note that we have switched from HIEU-level insurance status to person-level insurance status in order to break down the privately insured population into private group and private nongroup. Analyses were done by sex, race, and chronic conditions; as well as by poverty category and insurance status.
Meena Seshamani, Office of Healthcare Reform, HHS	Estimates on the likelihood of a person experiencing a gap in coverage over two years or four years (i.e., being uninsured for any period of time).	8/24/09	Joel Cohen, Steve Cohen	Provided an existing statistical brief on coverage over two- and four-year periods of time, and answered follow-up questions on the brief, which included estimates on the percent of people who are uninsured at least one month in the four years. Additional briefs were also provided using data from the four-year window.
Meena Seshamani, Office of Healthcare Reform, HHS	Estimates comparing Individuals with some health insurance coverage over a two-year period, those uninsured for at least one month or for two or more months over two years, and those uninsured for all 24 months.	8/31/09	Joel Cohen, Jeffrey Rhoades	Provided two charts: (1) Individuals with at least some coverage over the two-year period for each type of insurance, the percent uninsured for at least one month and for two or more months over the two years. (2) Individuals uninsured for at least one month and for all 24 months by poverty status.
Senate Finance Committee	Estimates on concentration and persistence of health care expenditures over time	9/2/09	William Yu, Steve Cohen	Provided data analyses on the concentration and persistence in the level of health expenditures over time, which informed a report for the Senate Finance Committee. The Statistical Brief 236 is available on the AHRQ website. More detailed tabulations provided in response to this topic are available upon request.
Meena Seshamani, Office of Healthcare Reform, HHS	Estimates of two-year health insurance status of persons under age 65 who were insured through an employer in January 1996.	10/6/09	Jessica Vistnes	Provided estimates of the two-year health insurance status (transitions) of persons under age 65 who were insured through an employer in January 1996, by age, race/ethnicity, perceived health status, chronic conditions, gender, poverty status, urban/rural and employment status.

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 U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

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

Page last reviewed November 2009

Internet Citation: Informing Health Initiatives: Summary of Requests and Assistance Provided, July-October 2009. November 2009. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, Rockville, MD. https://archive.ahrq.gov/policymakers/health-initiatives/summaries/ihisum0709.html