Health care coverage of survivor families with children: determinants and consequences

This article, which is based on data from the Social Security Administration's 1978 Survey of Survivor Families With Children, examines the continuity of health care coverage held by families headed by widows from the time of the husband's death to the interview. The data are presented by duration of widowhood and kind of coverage the family had before the husband died. Over this period, it was found that new kinds of coverage, such as the widow's job-related health insurance or directly purchased protection, often replaced the former coverage. At the time of the interview, about three-fourths of the families had coverage, including government assistance such as Medicaid. Whether or not the young survivor families had coverage was affected by the widow's current employment status and by family income. Premiums varied by type of policy: those with individual policies paid more (and received less extensive coverage) than did those with group policies. Compared with the general population, the widows and their children were in poorer health, generally used physician services less, and had somewhat higher expenditures for health care.