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 Hispa nic Americans in both 1987 and 1996 and identify gaps in minority health ca re coverage relative to white Americans. They also investigate the access o f workers in these groups to employment-based health insurance. Identified are factors underlying changes in the insurance status of workers during th e past decade in terms of changes in population characteristics and structu ral shifts underlying the demand for and supply of health insurance. The au thors find that while coverage has declined for workers in most racial/ethn ic groups, the experience of Hispanic males appears to be unique in that ch anges in their characteristics as well as structural shifts account for the ir decline in employment-related coverage. Structural shifts dominated the changes in coverage rates for other groups.