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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.
KFF’s Kaiser Health News (KHN), an editorially independent news service focusing on health care and policy, has won five “Best in Business” awards from the Society for Advancing Business Editing and Writing (SABEW).
A new analysis and chart collection finds that the U.S. has fewer hospital beds and practicing physicians per capita than many similarly large and wealthy countries with health care systems already strained by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Compared to Italy and Spain, two countries in which hospitals have already been overwhelmed by an influx of COVID-19 patients, the U.S. has fewer practicing physicians per capita - 2.6 per 1,000 people, compared to 4.0 in Italy…
A new KHN article describes how government decisions in the early days of the nation’s coronavirus outbreak have already impacted the magnitude of the pandemic and may affect the country for months to come. The article explains, for the first time, how the CDC initially sent the same number of test kits to public health labs in all 50 states, even though the outbreaks were highly localized at that point -- meaning that the tests didn't…
The rapidly increasing number of national COVID-19 cases is raising alarm among experts and state and local officials about health systems’ capacity to treat patients effectively and revealing the uneven geographic distribution of the country’s health care resources. A special report by KFF’s Kaiser Health News (KHN) shows that more than half the counties in the United States have no intensive care unit (ICU) beds, which poses a particular danger to patients age 60 or…
A new KFF brief answers key questions about potential U.S. military engagement in the domestic response to the novel coronavirus. With concerns that local response capabilities could become overwhelmed in the coming weeks, there have been increasing calls to have the U.S. military play a greater role in support of civilian response. The U.S. military has significant capabilities in a range of areas that could be called upon in the domestic response to coronavirus --…
In the midst of a sweeping national health and economic crisis sparked by the novel coronavirus pandemic, a new KFF coronavirus poll finds two thirds of the public (67%) say they are taking precautions as a result, and large shares worry about its impact on their family’s health and finances. This includes four in 10 who changed travel plans (42%) or canceled plans to attend large gatherings (40%), and about a third who stocked up…
A new issue brief estimates potential coronavirus treatment costs to large employer health plans and their enrollees by looking at typical spending for hospital admissions for pneumonia. The analysis finds that, for pneumonia admissions with major complications and comorbidities, the average total cost is $20,292. In comparison, the average cost for a patient with no complications or comorbidities is $9,763. Average out-of-pocket costs could exceed $1,300 for all admitted patients, including those without complications or…
Based on current understanding of risk, forty-one percent of adults ages 18 and older in the U.S. have a higher risk of developing more serious illness if they become infected with the virus that causes COVID-19, because they are older or have serious underlying health conditions, or both, according to a new KFF analysis. Of the more than 105 million adults at higher risk if infected with coronavirus, most – 76.3 million, or 72 percent…
While donors have begun providing support to China and other low- and middle-income countries, there is currently no other centralized repository for this information. This tracker provides an accounting of publicly available information on donor funding to date.
Democratic voters across the primary states that have already cast their ballots for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination consistently name health care as the top issue or among the top issues in this year’s election. A new interactive map highlights what Democratic primary voters are saying about health care as they vote. Based on KFF’s analysis of the state-level AP VoteCast data collected in most states as they hold their primary elections, health care ranked…
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