The Commonwealth Fund 2016 Biennial Health Insurance Survey

The 2016 biennial survey will be fielded in the second half of 2016 to assess effects of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) in the third year of the law’s coverage expansions and to explore overall trends in Americans’ insurance coverage. The survey will be designed to collect responses from a nationally representative sample of 6,000 adults age 19 and older, along with an oversample of approximately 1,800 residents of the four most populous states (California, Texas, New York, and Florida). As in 2014, the oversample will allow us to assess whether people’s experiences vary depending on where they live. The interviews will last approximately 25 minutes; 40 percent will be conducted with landline phone users and 60 percent with cell phone users.

The survey results will provide policymakers, the media, and the public with an up-to-date assessment of the ACA’s impact on health coverage in the United States. They will also help reveal unintended effects, such as underinsurance and enrollment churn, that might require policy adjustment. Given that census and other federal data are reported with a significant lag, the survey will help meet the likely demand for timely information on Americans’ health care at the start of the next president’s term.