Health insurance coverage after welfare

Abstract

This DataWatch examines the health insurance coverage of former welfare recipients who left welfare between January 1995 and mid-1997, using data from the 1997 National Survey of America's Families. Although the majority of women who left welfare were working, only 33 percent of these women obtained health coverage through their jobs. Rates of uninsurance increase with the number of months since leaving welfare and with declines in Medicaid coverage. A year or more after leaving welfare, 49 percent of women and 30 percent of children were uninsured.