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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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This brief analyzes current experiences of Medicare beneficiaries ages 65 and older with respect to satisfaction and access measures and examines whether privately-insured adults ages 50 to 64 report access or cost problems at higher or lower rates than Medicare beneficiaries 65 and older.
As policymakers debate how to address the high cost of prescription drugs, a new KFF analysis compares data on prescription drug spending and use across large employer plans, Medicare Part D and Medicaid, and provides context for policy discussions about different approaches to curb rising drug costs that would affect people covered by each of the three major payers. The data show that private insurers, Medicare and Medicaid account for 82 percent of retail prescription…
Medicare provides significant health and financial protections to more than 60 million Americans, but there are gaps in coverage and high cost-sharing requirements that can make health care difficult to afford. This report analyzes several policy options that could help make health care more affordable for people covered by Medicare, especially beneficiaries with relatively low incomes: adding an out-of-pocket limit to traditional Medicare, adding a hard out-of-pocket cap to Part D, expanding financial assistance through…
A new KFF issue brief compares the main drivers of health spending in the United States and other large, wealthy countries, and finds that the cost of inpatient and outpatient care – much more so than prescription drugs or administrative costs – drives high per capita health spending in the U.S. In 2018, the U.S. spent $10,637 on health per person – nearly twice as much as other comparably large and wealthy countries. The analysis finds…
This brief provides an overview of the major health-related COVID-19 federal emergency declarations that have been made since early on in the pandemic, summarizes the flexibilities triggered by each, and identifies the implications for their ending, related to coverage, costs, and payment for COVID-19 testing, treatments, and vaccines; Medicaid coverage and federal match rates; telehealth; access to medical countermeasures through FDA emergency use authorization (EUA); and other Medicaid, Medicare and private health insurance flexibilities.
We review several policy options to constrain health care spending, primarily by putting downward pressure on provider prices, including price regulation, global budgets, and spending growth targets.
Prescription drug costs are a pressing concern for both consumers and policymakers. This analysis compares prescription drug spending and use in large private employer plans, Medicare Part D, and Medicaid, based primarily on claims data by payer, which does not account for rebates.
Even prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, hormonal contraception became more accessible to many outside of traditional clinical settings through websites or apps that offer contraception via telehealth. To better understand this emerging method of contraceptive access, a new KFF analysis provides a deeper look at telecontraception platforms, offering insights into the practices of 13 different companies based on information collected between November 2020 through January 2021. Key highlights from the report include: All of the…
Based on the findings of a nonprobability sample of 6,000 survey respondents from four telecontraception companies, this brief presents a snapshot of telecontraception users and their reasons for using these platforms.
This issue brief highlights key differences between Medicare and Medicaid and raises questions about how a policy to lower the age of Medicare eligibility could affect individuals who are currently enrolled in Medicaid.
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