Search

This data note reviews our recent polling data that finds that Americans struggle to afford many aspects of health care, including disproportionate shares of uninsured adults, Black and Hispanic adults and those with lower incomes.

KFF is the independent source for health policy research, polling, and journalism. Our mission is to serve as a nonpartisan source of information for policymakers, the media, the health policy community, and the public.

This interactive tool, updated with 2022 data, helps users understand health care costs vary by family size, income, insurance, and health status. Use the dropdown menus to explore scenarios and trends in household health spending.

An updated issue brief looks at the drivers of health spending in the U.S. and key differences between the U.S. and other large, wealthy nations. The analysis finds that people in the U.S. spent $5,683 more per person on health care compared to those in similarly large and wealthy countries.…

In his latest column, KFF President and CEO Drew Altman examines how the politics around the Medicaid program have changed as it has grown much larger and more popular, making it even tougher to block grant the program to cut federal Medicaid spending and hand it off to the states.

In this column, KFF President and CEO Drew Altman explores the nation’s twin health cost crises of affordability, especially for people who are sick and need a lot of health care, and national health spending, and why the solutions often work at cross purposes.

This Health Policy 101 chapter explores trends in health care costs in the U.S. and the factors that contribute to this spending. It also examines how health care spending varies across the population, the impact of costs on care affordability and individuals’ overall financial vulnerability.  

KFF’s analysis provides an overview of total Medicaid spending per enrollee (state and federal shares) by eligibility group and state in 2021. Variation in per-enrollee Medicaid spending is driven by state Medicaid policy choices, like eligibility levels, benefits, and provider payments, as well as factors like state demographics and health costs.

Recent trends in healthcare utilization and spending suggest that most spending on health services exceeds pre-pandemic levels and health costs are growing at a faster rate than in recent years. However, utilization of care has been uneven by setting and market.