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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.
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A new animated video features the YouToons as they get ready for Obamacare and explore health insurance changes under the Affordable Care Act (ACA). The cartoon serves as a health reform tutorial for consumers and organizations.
This 50-state survey provides a snapshot of Medicaid and CHIP enrollment and eligibility policies and procedures and highlights the changes that states will need to make in their programs to prepare for the ACA in 2014.
This June 10 briefing looked at Medicare Advantage and changes affecting it, including revised calculations of payments from CMS, and the Affordable Care Act's reduced payments to Medicare Advantage plans. Speakers discussed how Medicare Advantage plans are expected to respond to payment changes; if quality bonus payments created significant changes in patient care or plan choices; and what implications could these decisions have on beneficiaries with regard to premiums, benefits and more.
Annual premiums for employer-sponsored family health coverage reached $16,351 this year, up 4 percent from last year, with workers on average paying $4,565 toward the cost of their coverage, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation/Health Research & Educational Trust (HRET) 2013 Employer Health Benefits Survey. This year's rise in premiums remains moderate by historical standards. The 15th annual Kaiser/HRET survey of more than 2,000 small and large employers provides a detailed picture of the status…
Lower-income adults with employer coverage are more likely than their higher-income peers to report negative outcomes due to problems using their insurance, a new KFF analysis shows. Drawing on data from the KFF Survey of Consumer Experiences with Health Insurance, the analysis shows that similar shares of lower- and higher-income adults with employer coverage report having common problems with their insurance such as denied claims or prior authorization issues. At the same time, those with lower incomes…
A new KFF analysis finds about 1 in 20 privately insured people (5.7%) received at least one ACA preventive service or drug that could be affected by a now-stayed U.S. District Court ruling in Braidwood Management v. Becerra, which found the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) preventive services mandate partially unconstitutional. The district court also found that pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), medication recommended for HIV prevention, violates the religious rights of those who have objections to its…
As part of broad deficit-reduction plans, policymakers are considering reforms to the nation's three major entitlement programs - Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security - that could significantly affect the economic security of seniors in their retirement years. This brief examines the role of these programs in ensuring seniors' financial security as well as the challenges facing current and future generations when it comes to economic and health security. Drawing from current research and data, the…
Tricia Neuman, Vice President and Director of the Medicare Policy Project, testified on behalf of herself and Thomas Rice, Ph.D., of UCLA's School of Public Health, before the House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Health on cost-sharing requirements under Medicare and supplemental Medigap policies. The statement reviews Medicare beneficiaries' current cost-sharing responsibilities, the evidence on the impact of out-of-pocket costs on health-care utilization, and the implications for proposals that would modify Medicare's cost-sharing structure.
This brief describes how the Medicare Part D benefit will change in 2020 under current law and proposed changes that would affect what beneficiaries, plans, manufacturers, and Medicare pay for drug costs under Part D in the future.
This analysis presents the most current data on out-of-pocket health care spending by Medicare beneficiaries, both overall and among different groups of beneficiaries. The analysis explores how much Medicare beneficiaries spend out of pocket in total on health care premiums and health-related services, on average; how much beneficiaries spend out of pocket on different types of health-related services; and what share of income beneficiaries spend on out-of-pocket health care costs.
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