Department of Pediatrics, School of Nursing, University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry, 601 Elmwood Avenue, Box 777, Rochester, NY, USA.
BACKGROUND: The extent to which the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) crowds our private insurance is poorly understood. OBJECTIVE: To assess the incidence of crowd-out and enrollee characteristics associated with crowd-out. DATA: Parent telephone survey for 2,644 children after enrollment in NY SCHIP. MEASURES AND ANALYSES: Crowd-out is measured based on enrollee reports of coverage (and loss of coverage) before SCHIP. Multivariate logistic regression is used to relate crowd-out to enrollee characteristics. PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: Only 7.1 percent of SCHIP enrollees dropped private coverage < or =6 months before SCHIP, suggesting relatively modest crowd-out. Crowd-out was associated with some enrollee traits including income, but not with health status. IMPLICATIONS: Most movement from private to public insurance in NY was not crowd-out. Under current program structure in NY, crowd-out concerns should not dampen enthusiasm for SCHIP.