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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.
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In his latest column for The Wall Street Journal's Think Tank, Drew Altman analyzes the Kaiser Health Policy News Index to determine which health stories in the news have broken through to the public the most in the last year. One conclusion: It wasn't the Affordable Care Act.
Strong Support for U.S. Role in Combatting Zika At Home and Abroad When it comes to world affairs, majorities of Americans list fighting terrorism (64%), protecting human rights (60%), and protecting the environment and fighting climate change (51%) as top priorities for the president and Congress, finds a new Kaiser Family Foundation survey of the public’s views on the United States’ role in global health. Global health ranks somewhat lower on the public’s priority list,…
A withdrawal by UnitedHealth Group from the Affordable Care Act (ACA) marketplaces in 2017 could have a significant impact on insurer competition and premiums in some markets, though it would have a minimal effect on the average benchmark premium nationwide, according to a new analysis from the Kaiser Family Foundation. Late last year, UnitedHealth announced that it experienced significant financial losses in ACA compliant plans and that it would decide about future participation in ACA…
This Visualizing Health Policy infographic spotlights national spending on prescription drugs and the public’s views on pharmaceutical prices. Prescription drug spending rose sharply in 2014, driven by growth in expenditures on specialty drugs, including medications to treat cancer and hepatitis C. Medicare’s spending on prescription pharmaceuticals also has risen, largely due to the addition of the Medicare prescription drug benefit in 2006: between 2004 and 2014, the program’s share of US drug expenditures increased from…
In this new policy insight, the Kaiser Family Foundation’s Tricia Neuman examines current rules that may discourage seniors from switching from Medicare Advantage to traditional Medicare.Traditional Medicare…Disadvantaged? explores this issue through the lens of a 67-year old Boomer who faced difficult financial and health coverage choices in the aftermath of a serious mountain biking accident. Previous columns in the Policy Insights series are also available.
What is Zika, how many countries are affected by it, and what is the U.S. doing to respond to the rapid spread of the virus? To better understand Zika, a new Kaiser Family Foundation infographic offers key facts about the virus, tracks the increasing number of countries reporting local transmission over the past year, and breaks down how key U.S. government agencies are responding to Zika. Other Kaiser Family Foundation resources on the Zika virus…
A Founding Editor of Kaiser Health News Died Last Week of Complications from Rare Health Condition WASHINGTON, D.C.– The Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF) is honoring the late Peggy Girshman, a founding executive editor of Kaiser Health News (KHN), by naming its annual web reporting fellowship for young journalists the "Peggy Girshman Web Reporting Fellowship." Girshman died last week at the age of 61 due to complications from the rare disease amyloidosis, which she had battled for the past few years. Girshman joined the Kaiser Family…
In his latest column for The Wall Street Journal’s Think Tank, Drew Altman examines the role of the Affordable Care Act in the health system on its sixth anniversary, and how the hot debate about the law may have created an exaggerated impression of the good and the bad it can do. All previous Drew Altman columns are online.
About One Third of Americans Perceive Wide-Scale Effort to Limit Women’s Reproductive Health Choices and Services; Most Who Do Say the Effort is a ‘Bad Thing’ Health care is one of many issues that will be important for voters in the presidential election, particularly for Democrats and women, finds the March Kaiser Health Tracking Poll. More than a third (36%) of voters consider health care “extremely important” to their vote in this year’s presidential election,…
A new analysis from the Kaiser Family Foundation finds that sign-ups in Affordable Care Act marketplace plans could continue to grow modestly over the next few years to 16.3 million (up 28%), based on the experience of the top-performing states. Assessing ACA Marketplace Enrollment examines factors that may have kept enrollment in 2016 from reaching early projections, including smaller declines than expected in employer coverage and a substantial number of people buying their own insurance…
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