ERIU Funded Research Projects

Author: Pollack, Harold ; Davis, Matthew ; Danziger, Sheldon ; Orzol, Sean
Working Paper: Health Insurance Coverage and Access to Care Among Former Welfare Recipients (PDF) ; November 2002

Research Findings (HTML)

Abstract:
Welfare reform in 1996 transformed the nature and purpose of public aid. From a political perspective, welfare reform is one of the most successful legislative initiatives in recent decades. From a policy perspective, the late 1990s were marked not only by welfare reform, but by real economic gains for low income workers and families. Child poverty rates declined, while labor force participation increased among unmarried mothers. Concomitant changes occurred in health insurance coverage for women and their children, although the cumulative effects of these economic and public policy changes have not been explored in depth.

This paper examines the health insurance status of “welfare-leavers” female heads of household who left the TANF rolls following the 1996 reform. We document the proportion of former TANF recipients, both adults and children, who lack health insurance coverage. We also explore more direct access measures, such as whether a respondent has encountered financial difficulties in obtaining needed care or medications for themselves or for their children.

Author: Pollack, Harold ; Kronebusch, Karl
Working Paper: Health Insurance and Vulnerable Populations (PDF) ; July 2002

Abstract:
Vulnerability rooted in poverty or economic disadvantage, discrimination, or impaired ability to make decisions may influence individuals' health insurance status. We provide a conceptual framework within which to define vulnerability and present what is known about how vulnerability influences the health insurance status of people with low incomes, children, racial or ethnic minorities and immigrants, people with chronic disease, the near-elderly, and individuals with psychiatric or substance abuse disorders. This paper is one of six papers commissioned at the outset of ERIU to provide a critical synthesis of the existing literature on who does not have health insurance, why they do not have health insurance, and what difference health insurance makes. The papers appeared in final form in Health Policy and the Uninsured published by Urban Institute Press in 2004.