Methods for Analyzing Health Insurance Coverage

CBO explains how it analyzes proposals for single-payer health care systems that would be based on Medicare’s fee-for-service program.

CBO describes the methods it has developed to analyze the federal budgetary costs of proposals for single-payer health care systems that are based on the Medicare fee-for-service program.

In 2019, about 12 percent of people under 65 were not enrolled in a health insurance plan or a government program that provides financial protection from major medical risks. In this report, CBO describes that uninsured population.

CBO uses HISIM2 to model firms’ decisions to offer health insurance and households’ decisions to enroll in health insurance. This slide deck describes the analytical methods used in HISIM2 to model firms’ decisions in CBO’s most recent baseline budget projections.

This infographic outlines the process when CBO and the staff of the Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) are tasked with analyzing major legislative proposals that would affect health insurance choices for people under age 65. Together, CBO and JCT develop a cost estimate that reflects the middle of the distribution of potential outcomes.

Today CBO released four products that, in combination, explain how the agency uses its new health insurance simulation model, HISIM2, to generate estimates of health insurance coverage and premiums for people under age 65.

This report explains how CBO defines health insurance coverage, describes how CBO combines data from various sources to produce estimates of different types of coverage in past years, and shows such estimates for the years 2015 to 2018.

CBO describes how its new health insurance simulation model was used to develop the agency’s new baseline budget projections. CBO also has made available segments of computer code to provide more detail about how the new model works.

This report describes the methods used to assess how the new rules would affect the number of people who obtain health insurance and the costs of federal subsidies for that coverage. It also provides details about those projected effects.

Presentation by Jessica Banthin, Deputy Assistant Director in CBO’s Health, Retirement, and Long-Term Analysis Division (HRLD), and Alexandra Minicozzi, Chief of HRLD’s Health Insurance Modeling Unit, at the Bipartisan Policy Center.

The process for analyzing major health care legislation involves three key steps: develop an analytic strategy, model the effects of the proposal, and review and write about the estimate.

CBO uses the Health Insurance Simulation Model to estimate the cost of various health care proposals, including the expansion of public programs, mandates for people to have insurance, and insurance market reforms.

Presentation by Sarah Masi, an analyst in CBO’s Budget Analysis Division, at a Congressional Research Service seminar on CBO’s methods for developing cost estimates.

Presentation by Alexandra Minicozzi, Unit Chief of Health Insurance Modeling in CBO’s Health, Retirement, and Long-Term Analysis Division, at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Actuaries.