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This issue brief provides an overview of health coverage and care in the South today, with a focus on demographics, the impact of the ACA coverage expansions, and ongoing efforts to improve the delivery system and safety net in the South.
The South has faced longstanding disparities in health and health care, although significant variation exists between southern states. As a group, compared to those in other regions, Southerners are more likely to be uninsured, less likely to have access to needed health services, and more likely to experience a number of chronic health conditions. This chartbook provides key data on the demographic and economic characteristics of the southern population as well as their health status, health insurance coverage, and access to care today.
Safety-net hospital emergency departments (EDs) are an important part of our health care system, especially, but not only, for the uninsured and others with low income. With multiple major changes unfolding in our system today, including the development of new models of health care delivery, payment reforms, expanded insurance coverage, and increasing demand for primary care access, safety-net EDs are a sort of crucible in which these shifts and transitions can be seen playing out. To understand more about their current experiences and challenges as the Affordable Care Act (ACA) begins to takes hold, we conducted interviews with ED directors in a convenience sample of 15 safety-net hospitals around the country in June and July 2014.
This Kaiser survey report looks at how the bankruptcies of two steel companies, the LTV Corporation and Bethlehem Steel, affected health coverage for the companies' retirees and dependents. The bankruptcies left about 200,000 retirees and spouses without retiree health coverage in 2002 and 2003.
Disparities in Women's Health Disparities in health and health care continue to burden women, particularly affecting women of color or those who are poor.
This issue brief describes the Medicaid non-emergency medical transportation (NEMT) benefit, how states administer it, and the reasons that beneficiaries frequently use NEMT. It also explores current policy issues related to NEMT in the context of alternative Medicaid expansion waivers.
This issue brief examines the role of Medicare for people under age 65 with disabilities, including how this group qualifies for Medicare, the characteristics of people under age 65 with disabilities compared to those age 65 or older, and how sources of supplemental coverage and prescription drug coverage, spending and use of services, and access to care differ for Medicare beneficiaries under age 65 with disabilities and older beneficiaries.
This issue brief draws on features of the various existing Medicaid home and community-based services (HCBS) programs to identify key policy questions raised by initiatives to streamline Medicaid HCBS, ameliorate institutional bias, and improve administrative simplification.
Community health centers served more than 32 million patients in medically underserved urban and rural areas in 2024. This brief reports on health center patients, services, and financing in 2024, using national data from the Uniform Data System (UDS).
In this brief on Medicaid issues to watch for 2026, KFF explores how state fiscal pressures are likely to converge with the implementation of the 2025 reconciliation law to affect Medicaid coverage, financing, and access to care over the next year, especially leading up to the midterm elections.
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