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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.
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This brief analyzes leading federal approaches to address Medicaid prescription drug spending, discusses (where available) a range of cost estimates for each policy, and assesses what drives those estimates or where there is uncertainty in them.
This analysis examines early indicators of how the expiration of enhanced premium tax credits has affected effectuated enrollment levels (i.e., enrollment among people who have paid their premiums), plan selections, and out-of-pocket costs in 2026, drawing on plan selection and effectuated enrollment data from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) and state-based Marketplace (SBM) Open Enrollment reports, as well as KFF survey data and individual market enrollment estimates from Wakely Consulting Group.
This analysis of trends in health insurers’ financial data shows that insurers’ gross margins per enrollee dipped slightly in 2024 across four markets, remaining highest in the Medicare Advantage market, followed by the individual (non-group) market, the fully insured group (employer) market, and Medicaid managed care. The analysis also examines insurers’ medical-loss ratios across the four markets.
Prescription drug spending in Medicaid and other health programs has returned to the national policy debate. This analysis examines Medicaid outpatient prescription drug utilization and spending before rebates over the 2015 to 2019 period, which is helpful for understanding recent cost drivers and areas for targeted policy action.
Semaglutide…has been selected for the second round of Medicare drug price negotiation…Many people are familiar with Ozempic and other drugs like it, use of these drugs has expanded rapidly in recent years, and the list price is high. All of that could focus more attention on this year’s drug price negotiation process….
The latest data on U.S. health spending are now available on the Health Spending Explorer, an interactive tool that allows users to explore trends in health spending by federal and local governments, insurers, nursing care, hospital, and other service providers, and consumers. The tool captures just-released 2022 data from the federal government, when national health expenditures totaled nearly $4.5 trillion. Overall spending rose 4.1% in 2022, with almost all categories of health spending experiencing growth.…
This data note analyzes five national surveys to assess trends in retiree health coverage among people ages 65 and older. These five surveys produce somewhat different estimates of retiree health coverage, but together paint a clear picture: the share of Medicare-age adults with employer- or union-sponsored retiree health coverage has been shrinking and appears to be on the way to extinction.
This issue brief examines Medicaid expansion enrollment and Medicaid spending in expansion and non-expansion states and describes the characteristics of adults covered by the Medicaid expansion.
This issue brief draws from the KFF/LA Times Survey of Immigrants and other KFF analyses to highlight immigrants’ health care eligibility, healthcare use and costs, as well as their contributions to the economy and workforce.
This brief discusses how consumers understand what their insurance covers, what to do when coverage for care is denied, and what protections exist to ensure that information is available and coverage determinations are fair, accurate, and timely.
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