Affordability


A promotional image for the the KFF Health Policy 101 Health Care Costs and Affordability chapter

Health Policy 101 is a comprehensive guide covering fundamental aspects of U.S. health policy and programs, including Medicare, Medicaid, the Affordable Care Act, employer-sponsored insurance, the uninsured population, health care costs and affordability, women's health issues, and health care politics. The Health Care Costs and Affordability chapter explores trends in health care costs in the U.S. and the factors that contribute to this spending. It also examines how health care spending varies across the population, the impact of costs on care affordability and individuals' overall financial vulnerability.

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  • Poll: Survey of the Non-Group Market Finds Most Say the Individual Mandate Was Not a Major Reason They Got Coverage in 2018, And Most Plan to Continue Buying Insurance Despite Recent Repeal of the Mandate Penalty 

    News Release

    Very Few Say They Would Want to Purchase a Short-Term Plan, A Regulation Being Drafted By The Trump Administration Nine in 10 enrollees in the non-group market say they intend to continue buying their own insurance even after being told that Congress has repealed the individual mandate penalty for not having coverage as of 2019, according to a new survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation. The survey finds the mandate, part of the Affordable Care…

  • Research Shows That Medicaid Expansion Has Resulted in Coverage and Economic Gains Without Affecting Traditional Groups or Other State Programs

    News Release

    States that have expanded Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act generally have seen gains in coverage, improvements in access to and affordability of health care, and net fiscal benefits, a growing body of research and data show. At the same time, Medicaid expansion has not diverted coverage from traditional groups or significantly reduced state spending on other programs, the research shows, contrary to assertions by some critics of Medicaid expansion. For example, data do not…

  • Analysis: For Patients with Large Employer Coverage, About 1 in 6 Hospital Stays Includes an Out-of-Network Bill

    News Release

    A new Kaiser Family Foundation analysis of medical bills from large employer plans finds that a significant share of inpatient hospital admissions includes bills from providers not in the health plan’s networks, generally leaving patients subject to higher cost-sharing and potential additional bills from providers. Almost 18 percent of inpatient admissions result in non-network claims for patients with large employer coverage. Even when enrollees choose in-network facilities, 15 percent of admissions include a bill from…

  • A Final Look: California’s Previously Uninsured after the ACA’s Third Open Enrollment Period

    Report

    The Kaiser Family Foundation California Longitudinal Panel Survey is a series of surveys that, over time, tracked the experiences and views of a representative, randomly selected sample of Californians who were uninsured prior to the major coverage expansions under the Affordable Care Act (ACA). The initial baseline survey was conducted with a representative sample of 2,001 nonelderly uninsured Californian adults in summer 2013, prior to the ACA’s initial open enrollment period. After each enrollment period…

  • A Generation of Health Care in the United States: Has Value Improved in the Last 25 Years?

    Issue Brief

    Using data from the Health System Dashboard, a new analysis looks at trends in health spending and outcomes in the United States between 1991 and 2016. While many U.S. health outcomes, like life expectancy and disease burden, have improved, the share of GDP devoted to health increased by 40%, and the U.S. still lags behind other countries in many key measures. The analysis is part of the Peterson-Kaiser Health System Tracker, an online information hub dedicated to monitoring and…

  • Chronic Disease Prevention: Saving Lives, Saving Money

    Event Date:
    Event

    The Alliance for Health Reform and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation sponsored a July 13 luncheon briefing to discuss whether or not public health investments can help prevent chronic disease and reduce escalating health care costs. For more information, please visit the Alliance's event page. Full version: Video   Speakers for this session: The panel was moderated by Ed Howard of the Alliance. Ursula Bauer, CDC National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion…

  • Understanding the Health Provisions in the Inflation Reduction Act

    Other Post

    President Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 into law on August, 16, 2022. KFF has several analyses relevant to understanding the health provisions in the legislation, as well as their potential impact on people. Among other measures, the legislation for the first time requires the HHS Secretary to negotiate prices for some top-selling drugs covered in Medicare. It also requires drug companies to pay rebates if prices rise faster than inflation for drugs…

  • Early Results from Federal Price Transparency Rule Show Difficultly in Estimating the Cost of Care

    Issue Brief

    A new issue brief examines compliance with a new federal price transparency rule and variation in payer-negotiated rates at U.S. hospitals. The analysis looks at the websites of the two largest hospitals in each state and the District of Columbia, and finds that a lack of consistency in the data and limited compliance among the hospitals sampled makes it difficult to compare prices across facilities. The brief is available on the Peterson-KFF Health System Tracker,…