Prior research identified limitations related to health insurance content in the CPS ASEC. The research suggested that improvements to the questionnaire and to the processing would produce higher quality estimates of health insurance coverage. After a decade of research showing that the CPS ASEC captured less health insurance coverage in comparison with other federal surveys (Hess et al., 2001; Kenney & Lynch, 2010; Pascale, 1999), the Census Bureau introduced a redesigned questionnaire in the 2014 survey. Those data were made available on schedule and the results are well documented.

 In response to these concerns and to adapt to the changing health insurance landscape, the Census Bureau has also redesigned its system of data processing, imputation, and weighting for the CPS ASEC. The new processing systems only work with the health insurance components based on the questions that debuted in 2014.

 Highlights from 2018 CPS ASEC Bridge File.

• Health insurance estimates are different across the 2018 CPS ASEC Bridge and 2018 CPS ASEC production files because of changes to data extraction and imputation.
• During calendar year 2017, the percentage of people with no health insurance at any time was 7.9 percent using the 2018 CPS ASEC Bridge File, lower than the production file estimate of 8.8 percent.
• The bridge file contains information about whether a person had selected types of coverage for none, part, or all of the calendar year.

 Highlights from 2017 CPS ASEC Research File.

• Health insurance estimates are different across the 2017 CPS ASEC Bridge and 2017 CPS ASEC production files because of changes to data extraction and imputation.  
• During calendar year 2016, the percentage of people with no health insurance at any time was 7.9 percent using the 2017 CPS ASEC Research File, lower than the production file estimate of 8.8 percent.
• The research file contains information about whether a person had selected types of coverage for none, part, or all of the calendar year.