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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.
This report, based on a nationally representative survey, provides a comprehensive overview of LGBT+ people’s experiences with health and health care access. It explores general well-being, experiences engaging in the health system, sexual and reproductive health care, and the impact of COVID-19 pandemic, among other issues.
Elizabeth (Liz) Williams is a senior policy manager with KFF’s Program on Medicaid and the Uninsured, where she focuses on analysis of state fiscal conditions, Medicaid prescription drug spending and utilization, and children’s health coverage and access. Prior to joining KFF, Liz worked in program evaluation at DC’s Children’s Law Center and conducted data analysis for the City of Philadelphia and the University of Pennsylvania’s Counseling and Psychological Services. She holds a Bachelor’s in Mathematics…
Medicare Part D enrollees with relatively high out-of-pocket expenses can expect see their costs rise in 2020, according to a new KFF analysis. This is mainly due to an increase in how much enrollees will pay out of pocket for their prescription drugs in the Part D benefit coverage gap phase before they qualify for catastrophic coverage. The analysis finds that out-of-pocket drug costs will increase by nearly $400 -- from $2,275 in 2019 to…
The repeal of the ACA could mean loss of Medicaid coverage for up to 15 million that were enrolled in the ACA Medicaid expansion group prior to the COVID-19 pandemic; however, repeal could also mean significant changes to Medicaid prescription drug policy with implications for state and federal spending for prescription drugs for non-expansion Medicaid enrollees.
The increase in the uninsured rate in recent years, as well as loss of coverage during the pandemic, has led to attention on the consequences of being uninsured. The need for medical care to test, treat, or prevent COVID-19 has also highlighted the potential consequences of uncompensated care for uninsured people. Uncompensated care costs occur because, although people who are uninsured use less care than people with coverage, most who are uninsured have limited income…
This brief estimates the level of public funding that was paid to help offset providers’ uncompensated care costs for the uninsured in 2017. To conduct the analysis, we rely on several secondary data sources including government budget appropriations and expenditure data for major public programs that provided funds to cover the cost of care for the uninsured, as well as analyses of secondary data sources completed by others.
A new KFF analysis finds that 24 percent more buprenorphine, a medication to treat opioid use disorder, was dispensed in 2022 than in 2019, the year before the pandemic brought a surge of opioid overdose deaths – and a focus on how to expand access and treatment. This upward trend in buprenorphine distribution, already in motion before the pandemic, continued throughout the COVID public health crisis, suggesting continued improvements in access to treatment even as…
Following the FDA approval of retail pharmacies carrying and distributing medication abortion, this poll finds that the public's awareness and knowledge of emergency contraception and medication abortion is still lacking, especially among respondents living in states with full abortion bans.
This issue brief presents state-level data on Medicaid financial eligibility criteria and adoption of the major non-MAGI pathways as of January 2022. The data were collected from March through May 2022 in KFF’s survey of Medicaid state eligibility officials.
Program integrity efforts work to prevent and detect fraud, waste, and abuse, to increase program transparency and accountability, and to recover improperly used funds. This brief explains what is known about improper payments and fraud and abuse in Medicaid and describes ongoing state and federal actions to address program integrity.
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