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.
This brief reviews medical underwriting practices by private insurers in the individual health insurance market prior to 2014, and estimates how many American adults could face difficulty obtaining private individual market insurance because of a pre-existing condition if the Affordable Care Act (also known as Obamacare) were repealed or amended and such practices resumed.
In partnership with The Washington Post, the Kaiser Family Foundation conducted the Survey of Rural America to gauge the views and experiences of people living in small towns and rural areas across the United States, and how they are similar or different from those in urban and suburban settings. This brief explores where health care fits in rural residents' political views, including attitudes toward Republican plans to repeal and replace the ACA as well as…
After record increases in fiscal year 2015, growth in Medicaid enrollment and total Medicaid spending nationally slowed substantially in FY 2016 and are projected to continue to slow in FY 2017 as the initial surge of enrollment under the Affordable Care Act’s coverage expansions tapered off, according to the 16th annual 50-state Medicaid Budget Survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation’s Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured. Despite recent trends, Medicaid officials identified high cost and specialty drugs…
This data note provides a snapshot of Medicare beneficiaries who died in 2014 and their Medicare spending at the end of life. It examines Medicare per capita spending trends over time since 2000 and in 2014, both overall and by type of service, for beneficiaries in traditional Medicare who died in a given year compared to those who survived the year.
This brief explains three provisions of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) – risk adjustment, reinsurance, and risk corridors – that were intended to promote insurer competition on the basis of quality and value and promote insurance market stability, particularly in the early years of reform as the ACA marketplaces, also known as exchanges, were established.
Based on case studies and focus groups, this brief reviews delivery systems and access to care for Medicaid enrollees in Colorado, Connecticut, Kentucky, and Washington as of Spring 2016. The findings provide an on-the-ground view of Medicaid delivery systems and enrollees’ experiences accessing care three years after implementation of the Medicaid expansion. This brief builds on previous reports that examined states’ preparation for implementation prior to the initial ACA open enrollment period and their experiences…
This Data Spotlight reviews national and state-level enrollment trends as of March 2016 and examines variation in enrollment by plan type and firm. It analyzes the most recent data on premiums, out-of-pocket limits, Part D cost-sharing for drugs, and plans’ quality ratings for Medicare Advantage enrollees.
About eight of 10 of the 2.6 million people who died in the US in 2014 were people on Medicare, making Medicare the largest insurer of health care provided during the last year of life. These Frequently Asked Questions explain Medicare’s role in or coverage of end-of-life care, advance care planning, advance directives, and hospice care. They also provide information on Medicare spending on end-of-life care, changes to the physician fee schedule, and how related issues arose…
This fact sheet discusses CMS's denial of Ohio's proposed changes to its existing Medicaid expansion . It also provides an overview of the proposed changes as included in the state's Section 1115 demonstration waiver application.
As policymakers in Washington scrutinize the rising cost of the EpiPen auto-injector, a new analysis from the Kaiser Family Foundation shows that Medicare Part D spending for the potentially life-saving device increased by more than 1000 percent between 2007, the year after the Part D drug benefit took effect, and 2014, the most recent year for which data are available. The higher spending partly results from more Part D enrollees using EpiPens during that period,…
© 2026 KFF