Social Insurance and Public Assistance

PRIVATE WELFARE Series Bf786–801 823
TABLE Bf786–801 Private social welfare expenditures – disaggregations of major categories: 1960–1997 Continued
Sources
For series Bf786–789, see the Health Care Financing Administration Internet
site, National Health Care Expenditures. See also Health Care Financing Review,
Statistical Supplement, 1998.For series Bf790–800, Wilmer Kerns, “Private
Social Welfare Expenditures, 1972–94,” Social Security Bulletin 60 (1) (1997):
54–9 and “Role of the Private Sector in Financing Social Welfare Programs,
1972–92,” Social Security Bulletin 58 (1) (1995): 66–73. There are some exceptions
for the income-maintenance expenditures: the figures for 1974 and
1976–1978 are from Wilmer Kerns and Milton P. Glanz, “Private Social Welfare
Expenditures, 1972–95,” Social Security Bulletin 51 (8) (1988): 8; and the
figures for 1979 and 1984 are from Wilmer Kerns, “Private Social Welfare
Expenditures, 1972–92,” Social Security Bulletin 57 (3) (1992): 63. For series
Bf801, see Wilmer Kerns, “Social Welfare Expenditure, 1972–1991,” Social
Security Bulletin 57 (1) (1994): 92, and Kerns and Glanz (1988).
Documentation
For more detail on health care expenditures and the source, see the text for
Table Bf875–886.
Series Bf786. Identical to series Bf876, and the sum of series Bf787–789.
Series Bf787. Health services and supplies include “personal health care,”
comprising therapeutic goods or services rendered to treat or prevent a specific
disease or condition in a specific person, and services, including hospital
services, physician services, dental service, durable and nondurable medical
devices, nursing home care, program administration, and net costs of health
insurance. The series represents spending for care rendered during the year.
It is the sum of personal health care expenditures, government public health
activity, and program administration. It is distinguished from research and
construction expenditures, which represent an investment in the future health
care system.
Series Bf788–789. Includes noncommercial biomedical research and the
construction of health care facilities.
Series Bf790. Identical to series Bf775.
Series Bf790–795. In the years 1980 through 1994, the subcategories should
sum to series Bf790. Prior to that time, series Bf790 includes information on
accidental death and dismemberment. Missing information on sickness and
disability in some years (see discussion that follows) also prevent the subcategories
from summing to the total. See the text for Table Bf773–785 for
more detail.
Series Bf791. Includes programs for government civilian employees in order
to maintain consistency with data reported for years prior to 1988. The
estimates are further adjusted to exclude group policies not based directly
on employer–employee relationships, such as insurance for credit card holders,
mortgage insurance, fraternal societies, savings or investment groups,
professional societies and employee associations; the excluded categories
account for about 8 percent of total life insurance benefits. The totals also
include accidental death and dismemberment benefits for the 1972–1979
period. After 1979, the Health Insurance Association of America eliminated
this item from their questionnaire.
Series Bf792. Based on mandatory form 5500 reports filed with the Internal
Revenue Service and forwarded to the Department of Labor. Definedcontribution
benefit plans included 401(k)-type plans, into which employees
can contribute a portion of their salaries with or without employer contributions
on a tax-deferred basis. Another form of pension coverage is
the employee stock ownership plan. Benefits paid include benefits from all
employment-related pension plans to which employees contribute (such as
thrift plans). However, withdrawals from individual savings plans, individual
retirement accounts, and Keogh plans are not included. More detail on
specific types of pension plan expenditures is available in the source.
Series Bf793. Sickness and disability benefits are sick leave and payments
for short-term sickness and disability from private and self-insurance. After
1980 long-term and short-term disability benefits are estimated separately.
This series does not correspond exactly to the series on short-term sickness
benefits in Tables Bf854–874. For the years 1972–1986, Kerns and Glanz
(1988, p. 8) report figures on sickness and disability benefits, but the estimates
for the overlapping years do not match up with the data on sickness
and disability reported in this table.
Series Bf793 and Bf801. In the 1995 Kerns article, there was a change in the
method of calculating sickness and disability insurance payments that led to
substantial changes in the numbers reported. Series Bf801 was included for
persons who were interested in having a consistent series for changes during
the 1970s and early 1980s. Kerns seems to consider series Bf793 to be the
superior estimate.
Series Bf794. Long-term disability benefits, as a rule, commence on the first
day of the seventh month of disability. The figures are estimated from data
supplied by the Health Insurance Association of America. Long-term disability
benefits paid under the provisions of employment-related pension plans
are included in the private pension category.
Series Bf795. Data on supplemental unemployment benefits are taken from
the national income and product accounts (NIPA) series on other labor income
by industry and by type. Most of these benefits are paid to automobile
workers under management-union contractual agreements.
Series Bf796. Identical to series Bf776, and the sum of series Bf797–800.
Series Bf796–800. The education spending figures are derived from methods
developed by both the Social Security Administration (SSA) and the U.S.
Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA). For consistency, the SSA is now using
the BEA’s NIPA estimates with two minor adjustments. The SSA estimates
include school construction costs funded by private sources, which the BEA
reports elsewhere. The BEA estimate for education includes contributions
from foundations and from nonprofit research funds, which are excluded by
the SSA.
Series Bf801. Covers private industry wage and salary workers.