The following statistics were derived from this data:
Nearly 18% of the population had no usual source of health care in 1996. Approximately 12% of all American families experienced barriers to receiving needed health care services.
77.5% of children with a usual source of health care had at least one ambulatory visit compared to 43.3% of children who lacked a usual source of health care in 1996.
Persons under the age of 65 years with either public or private insurance coverage were more likely to receive ambulatory care than their uninsured counterparts.
Indicative of higher health care utilization rates during the last months of life, the mean number of ambulatory visits for persons who died is about two and a half (2 1/2) times higher than the rest of the population.
Only 43.2% of the population received dental care in 1996.
This file consists of data obtained in Rounds 1, 2 and 3 of the survey (i.e., covering calendar year 1996) and consolidates all of the final 1996 person-level variables onto one file. This file contains the following variables previously released on MEPS public use files HC-002, -003, -004, -008 and -011 as well as on the October 2000 version of HC-012: survey administration; demographic and family relationship; income and tax filing; employment; health insurance; month-by-month poverty variables, health status and access to care; utilization, expenditures and source of payment; and weight and variance estimation variables. For variables that have been updated since their initial release, only the final version has been included on the HC-012 file. This file also contains updated prescribed drug and total expenditure data and summary yearly health insurance variables.
*The PDF version of the codebook is recommended for printing; the HTML version is database driven and lets you navigate quickly to details on each variable.
**Right-click on the data file link, then select Save Target As or Save Link As to download the file.