Modelling the coverage of private health insurance in Australia in 1995

This paper describes how microsimulation techniques were used to
create a dataset of individual’s private health insurance information. The
dataset was based on the national health survey (NHS) conducted by the
Australian Bureau of Statistics. Data from other sources were also used
when it was necessary to impute information not recorded in the NHS.

While the NHS was the most comprehensive microdata source with
information on private health insurance, health characteristics and
health services usage in Australia, the latest survey in this series was
undertaken in 1989-90. This means that much of its information is now
out of date. In particular, the significant changes in the incidence of
private health insurance since then mean that its description of the
incidence of this insurance is no longer valid and the accurate modelling
of possible changes in health insurance policy is not possible.

The methods used to age the demographic, socioeconomic and insurance
usage characteristics of the NHS records to 1995 are described, and the
accuracy of the variables in the new dataset is assessed by comparing
them with benchmark data.