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.
Workers are paying on average $7,471 annually toward the premiums for employer-sponsored family health benefits this year, which is up 9%, or $621, from 2025, according to KFF’s annual benchmark health benefits survey of large and small employers.
Medicare’s standard Part B premium is $2,435 this year and is projected to increase by $79 annually for 2027 – meaning this increase alone would consume most of the $90 payment, which less than half of all beneficiaries will receive.
Overall, suicide deaths peaked in 2022 and declined through 2024 before increasing slightly by nearly 250 deaths in 2025. However, trends differed by method. Firearm suicides reached their highest level in 2025, according to provisional data, while suicides by other means continued to decline. Firearms accounted for 57% of all suicide deaths in 2025, up from 50% in 2015. Contacts to the federally mandated crisis number, 988 also continue to grow four years after implementation.
The proposed $103,265 fee could lead to reductions in U.S. health care workforce, increasing barriers to care….A decline in H-1B workers would disproportionately impact states that employ the largest shares of H-1B workers (NY, MA, CA, and PA), lower income and rural areas where H-1B health care workers often are employed, and smaller employers, who would face greater challenges paying the fee.
While the DHS guidance provides more details on public charge determinations under the new rule, it leaves key concepts unspecified and grants substantial discretion to individual immigration officers. This will likely result in ongoing confusion and fear among immigrant families that may deter them and their citizen children from participating in programs that help pay for health care, housing, or food even if they are eligible.
If states do not provide coverage with state-only dollars and [gender-affirming] care cannot be financed in other ways, thousands of young people could be without a way to access what remains a recommended medical intervention.
On August 5, 2026 the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the first-ever mRNA flu vaccine for adults 50 and older, following a trial of roughly 40,000 people. KFF polling in April 2025 found that most adults ages 50 and older were uncertain whether mRNA vaccines are safe.
ACA Marketplace insurers’ proposed rate filings for 2027 are now available from all 50 states and the District of Columbia. According to KFF’s analysis, the 15% median increase would be the second consecutive year of double-digit premium hikes (last year’s median finalized premium increase was 20%.)
Donor government funding to combat HIV in low- and middle-income countries fell by $2.1 billion in 2025, a 25% decrease from the previous year. The 2025 decrease was driven by a decline in U.S. disbursements following the administration’s substantial cuts in global health funding, programs, and personnel. Despite this decline, the U.S. remains the largest donor to HIV in the world.
Without these extra subsidies in place for 2027, some Part D stand-alone drug plan (PDP) enrollees could see a larger premium increase for drug coverage next year than they’ve faced in recent years, though plan-specific premium amounts are not yet known. While some policymakers questioned the rationale for and cost of the premium stabilization demonstration, which totaled $9.8 billion in 2025 and 2026, the extra subsidies worked as intended to stabilize year-over-year PDP premium increases…
© 2026 KFF
