Whether insurance coverage for smoking-cessation medicines increases quitting rates is uncertain. In this paper we evaluate the overall effect of a new health plan pharmacy benefit on the use of pharmacotherapy, attempts to quit, and quitting rates. The presence of a smoking-cessation pharmacy benefit as implemented by these health plans produced no change in the use of bupropion, nicotine patches, or nicotine gum, nor did it result in higher rates of quitting smoking. Further studies are needed to test whether greater efforts to make smokers aware of insurance benefits or adding other types of cessation support might lead to any beneficial effects.

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The largest portion of the Medicaid undercount is caused by survey reporting error—that is, Medicaid recipients misreport their enrollment in health insurance coverage surveys. In this study, we sampled known Medicaid enrollees to learn how they respond to health insurance questions and to document correlates of accurate and inaccurate reports. We found that Medicaid enrollees are fairly accurate reporters of insurance status and type of coverage, but some do report being uninsured. Multivariate analyses point to the prominent role of program-related factors in the accuracy of reports. Our findings suggest that the Medicaid undercount should not undermine confidence in survey-based estimates of uninsurance.

Objective. To examine whether known Medicaid enrollees misreport their health insurance coverage in surveys and the extent to which misreports of lack of coverage bias estimates of uninsurance. Data Source. Primary survey data from the Medicaid Undercount Experiment. Study Design. Analyze new data from surveys of Medicaid enrollees in California, Florida, and Pennsylvania and summarize existing research examining bias in coverage estimates due to misreports among Medicaid enrollees. Data Collection Method. Subjects were randomly drawn from Medicaid administrative records and were surveyed by telephone. Principal Findings and Conclusions. Cumulative evidence shows that a small percentage of Medicaid enrollees mistakenly report being uninsured, resulting in modest upward bias in estimates of uninsurance. A somewhat larger percentage of enrollees report having some other type of coverage than no coverage, biasing Medicaid enrollment estimates downward but not biasing estimates of uninsurance significantly upward. Implications for policy makers' confidence in survey estimates of coverage are discussed.Key Words. Validation study, health insurance coverage, survey and administrative data, Medicaid undercount There is consensus among researchers that population surveys of health insurance coverage undercount the number of individuals enrolled in Medicaid

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