Race/Ethnicity and Health Insurance Status: 1987 and 1996

Health insurance confers important private and social benefits. Disparities in coverage among the population remain an important public policy issue. The authors focus on the health insurance status of white, black, and Hispanic Americans in both 1987 and 1996 and identify gaps in minority health care coverage relative to white Americans. They also investigate the access of workers in these groups to employment-based health insurance. Identified are factors underlying changes in the insurance status of workers during the past decade in terms of changes in population characteristics and structural shifts underlying the demand for and supply of health insurance. The authors find that while coverage has declined for workers in most racial/ethnic groups, the experience of Hispanic males appears to be unique in that changes in their characteristics as well as structural shifts account for their decline in employment-related coverage. Structural shifts dominated the changes in coverage rates for other groups.