Today or Last Year? How Do Interviewees Answer the CPS Health Insurance Questions?

CPS estimates of annual health insurance coverage are below estimates from other surveys and administrative data. One potential explanation is that respondents misinterpret the question and report current rather than past year status. The authors use CPS data matched to administrative enrollment records for Medi-Cal in California to evaluate this possibility. The individual-level matched data allows them to explore the validity of CPS responses under different enrollment scenarios, where "truth" is based on administrative data. While they find some support for the reference period argument, their findings appear more consistent with a combination of cognitive perspectives on interviewing and stigma.

Under-Reporting of Medicaid and Welfare in the Current Population Survey

Conventional estimates of the number of uninsured Californians are derived from the Current Population Survey (CPS). Unfortunately, CPS estimates of the number of people receiving Medi-Cal and welfare (AFDC/CalWORKs) are well below the numbers implied by official Medi-Cal records, suggesting that the conventional estimates of the number of uninsured Californians (and their characteristics) are seriously flawed. To improve understanding of these issues, the California HealthCare Foundation (through its then separate the Medi-Cal Policy Institute-MCPI) and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families (DHHS-ACF) funded RAND to match CPS data to individual-level administrative data for the Medi-Cal program. With the cooperation of the California Department of Health Services (CDHS), the U.S. Bureau of the Census, and the California Census Research Data Center (CCRDC), that match was performed. This document describes the findings of the analysis of those matched data.

Countywide Evaluation of the Long-Term Family Self-Sufficiency Plan: Countywide Evaluation Report

The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors adopted the Long-Term Family Self-Sufficiency (LTFSS) Plan in November, 1999. The LTFSS Plan consists of 46 projects whose goal is to promote self-sufficiency among families that are participating in the California Work Opportunity and Responsibility to Kids Act of 1997 (CalWORKs) program, former CalWORKs families, and other low-income families. The LTFSS Plan was explicitly guided by a results-based decision making framework developed by Mark Friedman. RAND analyzed historical quantitative data on indicators selected by the Plan to establish trends against which to track future LTFSS performance countywide. We also interviewed 65 key informants in the county and analyzed a wide range of written materials to assess the use and utility of the framework. This document summarizes the quantitative and qualitative findings from three earlier RAND reports on the LTFSS effort