Overview

The Center's Health Insurance Program is a recognized authority on the current state of local, state and national health insurance policies, coverage, costs and efficacy.
 
Under the direction of E. Richard Brown, PhD, Center director and a senior health policy advisor to the 2008 Barack Obama presidential campaign, Program staff produce the biennial report The State of Health Insurance in California (SHIC), a comprehensive examination of health insurance coverage in the state, with particular attention to health and health care disparities resulting from lack of insurance.

Program staff also publish in-depth research on topics ranging from the effects of discontinuous coverage on access to care to the decline of job-based insurance and work collaboratively with the Center’s Health Economics & Evaluation Research Program to assess the costs associated with insuring the uninsured and the impact of health insurance expansion programs.

The Program provides statistical analyses of health insurance topics to advocates, academics and the media upon request, as well as to legislators and their staff. Such analyses were integral to California’s 2007 health care reform effort. Publications, presentations, and invited testimony from Center faculty and staff have also supported a wide range of health insurance initiatives, including the county-based Healthy Kids programs and statewide legislative efforts to expand Medi-Cal and Healthy Families.

The Program's researchers also review and write questions related to health insurance in the California Health Interview Survey (CHIS), the nation’s largest state health survey and a leading source of data on health insurance.