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 Health Policy 101 chapter explores the performance of the U.S. health system on a number of cost, outcomes, and quality measures by comparing it with those in similarly large and wealthy OECD nations. It highlights that despite significant spending, Americans have shorter life expectancies and encounter more barriers to health care, influenced by both the health system's structure and broader socioeconomic factors.
This Health Policy 101 chapter explores Medicare, a federal health insurance program covering more than 68 million people, established in 1965 for people age 65 or older and later expanded to cover people under age 65 with long-term disabilities. In addition to detailing Medicare eligibility, coverage, and spending, the chapter examines the increased role of private plans in providing benefits and the financing challenges posed by increasing health care costs and an aging population.
Undocumented immigrants are not eligible for federally funded health coverage. The GOP’s Big Beautiful Bill didn’t change that. Overturning the health care provisions in the law won’t either.
disparity, Disparities
This policy watch explains how abortion coverage works in ACA Marketplace plans, state actions to include or exclude abortion coverage in these plans, and the potential impact if Congress bans abortion coverage in all Marketplace plans.
This policy watch outlines the groups of lawfully present immigrants that will lose access to federally funded health coverage due to the 2025 tax and budget law, and the CBO’s estimates of the increases in the uninsured.
With recent federal actions to curtail vaccine access, many states have announced actions intended to maintain broader access. This issue brief provides a snapshot of this rapidly changing landscape, tracking which states have instituted changes in response to or in anticipation of administration policy changes.
© 2026 KFF