The independent source for health policy research, polling, and news.
KFF’s policy research provides facts and analysis on a wide range of policy issues and public programs.
KFF designs, conducts and analyzes original public opinion and survey research on Americans’ attitudes, knowledge, and experiences with the health care system to help amplify the public’s voice in major national debates.
KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the organization’s core operating programs.
In his latest column for The Wall Street Journal's Think Tank, Drew Altman discusses a new Blue Cross Blue Shield Association report on “extreme price variation” in health care services and the limits of consumer information as a solution to the problem. All previous columns by Drew Altman are available online.
A new Kaiser Family Foundation survey about the U.S. role in global health finds the public puts meeting basic needs such as improving access to clean water and food and helping children at the top of the priority list for U.S. global health spending. Addressing the Ebola outbreak in West Africa is also a top priority. Some high profile issues such as malaria and reproductive health rank further down the list. About 7 in 10…
A new survey from the Kaiser Family Foundation provides a comprehensive look at where states stand with their Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) eligibility levels and enrollment, renewal and cost-sharing policies as of January 2015, one year into implementation of the Affordable Care Act’s major coverage provisions. The 13th annual survey, conducted by the Foundation’s Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured and Georgetown University’s Center for Children and Families, finds that states…
A new report, The Rising Cost of Living Longer: Analysis of Medicare Spending by Age for Beneficiaries in Traditional Medicare, from the Kaiser Family Foundation takes a detailed look at per person Medicare spending by age and by service among the nearly 30 million people covered by traditional Medicare in 2011
In his latest column for The Wall Street Journal's Think Tank, Drew Altman explores how price is the major factor that distinguishes the cost of our health care system from those in other developed nations, yet most efforts in the U.S. to address health-care costs don't focus on price much at all. All previous columns by Drew Altman are available online.
In this new policy insight, Kaiser Family Foundation Senior Fellow Karen Pollitz explores how high cost sharing in health insurance plans can contribute to an individual’s medical debt, and explains how greater transparency in plan details could help consumers avoid some financial pitfalls. Medical Debt Among Insured Consumers: The Role of Cost Sharing, Transparency, and Consumer Assistance also provides an update on provisions of the Affordable Care Act meant to increase health plan transparency and…
On Tuesday, January 13, the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) held a conversation with Tom Frieden, M.D., M.P.H., director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), to discuss his recent trip to assess the Ebola outbreak in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea. The discussion focused on efforts to contain the Ebola outbreak in West Africa and the ongoing response by the U.S. government. Josh Michaud, associate director of…
This Visualizing Health Policy infographic provides an overview of Medicare spending, including information on current federal spending relative to other government programs (e.g., Social Security) and percent-share of spending across Medicare services, as well as projected Medicare spending over the next decade and beyond. Recent federal spending on Medicare is about a third of Defense and Social Security spending combined. In the short term, Medicare spending per person is expected to be lower relative to…
In his first 2015 column for The Wall Street Journal's Think Tank, Drew Altman explains why this year, status quo for the Affordable Care Act is not an option and how the Supreme Court rules in King v. Burwell will determine its path. All previous columns by Drew Altman are available online.
The FY15 Omnibus Appropriations Act contains $5.4 billion in emergency funding to address the Ebola crisis – a significant increase in total U.S. support for global health. Aside from the additional funding for Ebola, global health funding remained essentially flat at $9.2 billion, according to a new Kaiser Family Foundation funding analysis. Of the total emergency funding to respond to Ebola, which is outside the budget caps for discretionary spending, $3.7 billion is specifically for…
© 2026 KFF