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MEPS HC-024: 1996 Person Round Plan File
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Release date: 09/14/2001

Notes on viewing and downloading files
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This public use data file contains data for each person with private health insurance reported in rounds 1, 2, and 3 of the 1996 Medical Expenditure Panel Survey Household Component (MEPS HC). Released as an ASCII file with SAS, SPSS, and STATA programming statements and in SAS transport format, this public use file provides information collected on a nationally representative sample of the civilian noninstitutionalized population of the United States during the calendar year 1996. The HC-024 file contains records for persons insured through establishments providing hospital/physician, medigap, dental or prescription medication coverage and includes variables pertaining to managed care and satisfaction with plan coverage.

Readme file Update Notes
X
Update #4: 11/22/13

SPSS and STATA Programming Statements have been added.

Update #3: 12/27/10

The value of COVTYPIN (single or family coverage) was incorrectly set for a small number of plans. These cases have all four of the following conditions: (1) every coresiding family member’s coverage ceased before the end of the reference period (interview date or December 31st, so that EVALCOVR≠1), (2) the policyholder was a coresiding family member, (3) the plan did not cover anyone residing elsewhere, and (4) at least one coresiding dependent had coverage during the reference period . In these cases, COVTYPIN was erroneously set to single. Beginning in 2010, if coverage ceased for every coresiding family member before the end of the reference period, COVTYPIN is set to family if there were two or more persons covered any time during the reference period. Users can reset the values for these cases in prior years with the available data. An example in SAS follows:

proc sort data=h111 out=prpl;
by eprsidx;
run;
data eprs(keep=eprsidx numin numever);
set prpl;
by eprsidx;
retain numin numever;
array stat{24} status1-status24;
if first.eprsidx then do; numin=0; numever=0; end;
if substr(dupersid,6,3) ne '901' then do;
do i=1 to 24; if stat{i}=1 then covered=1; end;
if covered=1 then numever=numever+1;
if evalcovr=1 then numin=numin+1;
end;
if last.eprsidx then output eprs;
run;
data prplx(drop=numin numever covtypin rename=(covtypix=covtypin));
merge prpl eprs;
by eprsidx;
if numin=0 and covtypin=1 and numever>1 then covtypix=2;
else covtypix=covtypin;
label covtypix='COVERAGE: 1=SINGLE, 2=FAMILY';
run;

Update #2: 09/30/03

The variable LTCINS contains household reports of long term care insurance, but estimates of the prevalence of long term care insurance do not benchmark well to data from the insurance industry. T variable LTCINS should not be used and will not be released future files.

Update #1: 03/17/03

Due to a data editing error, the values of t variable COBRA are not accurate on some records for rounds and 3. For round 2, the problem arose in editing some round values of COBRA to reflect COBRA status reported first in rou 1, specifically in some cases when the coverage reported in rou 1 continued in round 2. Round 3 had the same problem, which al led to some COBRA coverage first reported in round 1 not bei used in editing round 3. This will not be a problem in the 19 Person Round Plan file and files for subsequent years.The following SAS code will correct the problem:

Data work.prpl1 work.prpl2 work.prpl3;
Set h24(keep=ESTBIDX PHLDRIDX RN COBRA PHOLDER EPCPIDX);
If PHOLDER=1 & RN=1 & COBRA in (-9,-8,1,2) then output work.prpl1;
Else if RN=2 & COBRA in (-9,2) then output work.prpl2;
Else output work.prpl3;

Proc sort data=work.prpl1(keep=ESTBIDX PHLDRIDX COBRA);
By ESTBIDX PHLDRIDX;

Proc sort data=work.prpl2;
By ESTBIDX PHLDRIDX;

Data work.prpl4;
Merge work.prpl1(in=A rename=(COBRA=COBRA2))
work.prpl2(in=B);
By ESTBIDX PHLDRIDX;
If B;
If A then COBRA=COBRA2;
Drop COBRA2;

Data work.prpl5 work.prpl6;
Set work.prpl3 work.prpl4;
If PHOLDER=1 & RN=2 & COBRA in (-9,-8,1,2) then output work.prpl5;
Else if RN=3 & COBRA in (-9,2) then output work.prpl6;

Proc sort data=work.prpl5(keep=ESTBIDX PHLDRIDX COBRA);
By ESTBIDX PHLDRIDX;

Proc sort data=work.prpl6;
By ESTBIDX PHLDRIDX;

Data work.prpl7;
Merge work.prpl5(in=A rename=(COBRA=COBRA2))
work.prpl6(in=B);
By ESTBIDX PHLDRIDX;
If B;
If A then COBRA=COBRA2;
Drop COBRA2;

Proc sort data=work.prpl4(keep=EPCPIDX COBRA);
By EPCPIDX;

Proc sort data=work.prpl7(keep=EPCPIDX COBRA);
By EPCPIDX;

Proc sort data=h24;
By EPCPIDX;

Data h24cobra;
Merge h24
work.prpl4(in=A e=(COBRA=COBRA2))
work.prpl7(in=B rename=(COBRA=COBRA3));
By EPCPIDX;
If A then COBRA=COBRA2;
If B then COBRA=COBRA3;
Drop COBRA2 COBRA3;

After running this SAS code, the frequency of the corrected COBRA variable is:

COBRA COVERAGE:1=YES,2=NO
COBRAFrequencyPercentCumulative
Frequency
Cumulative
Percent

-910732.1110732.11
-81140.2211872.34
-720.0011892.34
-14355785.784474688.12
119153.774666191.89
241178.1150778100.00
Close


Documentation
File type
Documentation PDF (85 KB) / HTML
Codebook PDF (27 KB) / HTML*
SAS Programming Statements TXT (23 KB)
SPSS Programming Statements TXT (24 KB)
STATA Programming Statements TXT (29 KB)

Data
File type**
Data File, ASCII format ZIP (794 KB) / EXE (824 KB)
Data File, SAS transport format ZIP (1.2 MB) / EXE (1.2 MB)


Questionnaires — see Survey Questionnaires
*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.

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