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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.
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.
Political leaders on both sides point fingers at health insurers for high costs and patient frustrations. How much blame do insurers, in fact, deserve for our health system’s problems? In this three-part video series, KFF’s Larry Levitt considers this question and the complicated answer, exploring what’s driving rising insurance premiums, whether insurers provide value, and who we trust to decide what gets covered and at what price.
Costly health insurance premiums are straining employers and consumers alike. But, it’s underlying health care spending, especially for hospital care, that’s driving costs. KFF’s Larry Levitt looks at how hospital consolidation and employer demands for broad networks affect insurers’ ability, and willingness, to control prices in this first video of a three-part series on health insurers and rising health care costs.
Insurers take a cut of every premium dollar for overhead and profit. The question isn't just whether they profit, but also whether we’re getting value in return. KFF’s Larry Levitt breaks down how much goes to administrative costs and profit and how that varies across private insurance markets and Medicare, and considers what a Medicare-for-all system, which would be operated by the government, would address and what might be left unresolved in this second video…
Deciding what health care gets covered largely falls to health insurers, and it’s not a role that wins them many fans. A KFF poll finds prior authorization is the single biggest burden insured adults say they face beyond cost.
Detailed state and national data related to the 2025 Reconciliation Law Medicaid Work Requirements
ACA Marketplaces insurers are proposing a median premium increase of 15% in 2027, according to KFF's updated analysis of 276 insurers with publicly available filings across all 50 states and the District of Columbia.
Amid an ongoing FDA re-review of mifepristone, awareness of the safety and prevalence of the abortion pill remains limited. This KFF poll also finds that the voters who say abortion policy is an important issue for 2026 midterm candidates to discuss are disproportionately Democrats.
In a new column, Dr. Drew Altman, Founding President and CEO, analyzes the polling on health costs as a voting issue and concludes that there is no one top voting issue. He writes: “I have come to the conclusion that the search for a single top issue through polling questions—whether it’s health costs, or gas prices, or the cost of food—is artificial. People worry about and experience these costs together. There is no top issue,…
Following several years of rapid enrollment growth in the Affordable Care Act (ACA) Marketplaces that corresponded with temporary enhanced premium tax credits, enrollment fell for the first time in seven years in 2026, when those tax credits expired. Every state except for New Mexico saw a drop in ACA Marketplace enrollment from 2025 to 2026. State-based Marketplaces that run their own enrollment platforms, including those that partially offset the expiring federal enhanced tax credits, generally…
State Medicaid programs must inform people affected by new work requirements with federally required notices, and most states are planning other types of outreach, including phone calls, public ads, and social media posts. This brief describes the federal outreach requirements and state plans, as well as the complexities and tight implementation timelines states face.
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