Personal characteristics and spells without health insurance.

People without health insurance differ not only in their personal characteristics and reasons for being without health insurance but also in the length of time they spend in uninsured spells. A hazard model of spell durations is used to estimate the relative effects of a person's characteristics in the month just before an uninsured spell begins on the duration of the spell. Using the Survey of Income and Program Participation, our analyses indicate that monthly family income, educational attainment, and industry of employment in the month prior to losing health insurance are the characteristics that have the greatest impact on the exit rate from being without health insurance. Because low-income people could end an uninsured spell with either private health insurance or Medicaid, findings from an exploratory competing risks model are also reported.