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This slideshow explores the variation in health spending across the population through an analysis of the 2019 Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS) data. It finds that 5% of the population with the highest health expenditures accounted for nearly half of total health spending in the United States. It also examines spending variation by age, gender, race, insurance status and presence of certain health conditions.
In this column for The Wall Street Journal's Think Tank, Drew Altman explains why recent discussion of Harvard University’s introduction of new health insurance cost sharing measures amounted to “making a mountain out of a mole hill”.
cost sharing for plans offered in federally facilitated or partnership marketplaces for 2015 – 2015-0211 Download…
Affordability of coverage remains a persistent problem for some who have gained coverage as a result of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Using data from the 2014 Kaiser Survey of Low-Income Americans, this brief examines the factors that may be contributing to affordability challenges among those with coverage through the Marketplace.
This issue brief provides an overview of Medicare, the health insurance program for people ages 65 and over and younger people with long-term disabilities. The brief review the characteristics of people on Medicare, what Medicare covers, benefit gaps and supplemental coverage, beneficiaries' out-of-pocket health care spending, program spending and financing, payment and delivery system reform, and issues for the future of Medicare.
This issue brief presents an analysis of the financial burden of out-of-pocket health care spending for Medicare beneficiaries between 1997 and 2005. The analysis shows median out-of-pocket spending as a share of Medicare beneficiaries' income increased between 1997 and 2005, from 11.9 percent to 16.1 percent. For some beneficiaries, the spending burden was even greater, with 25 percent of people on Medicare spending nearly one-third or more of their income on health care.
This brief looks at the extent to which people have enough savings to meet the cost sharing requirements under private health insurance policies, which have risen substantially in recent years.
In an Axios column, Drew Altman raises a health care issue that isn’t being debated, a large share of the public don’t have the assets to cover the cost sharing in their health plan if they get sick.
This interactive map shows the status of all Section 1332 waivers requested by states. The Affordable Care Act (ACA) allows states to apply for innovation waivers to alter key ACA requirements in the individual and small group insurance markets and can be used to shore up fragile insurance markets, address unique state insurance market issues, or experiment with alternative models of providing coverage to state residents.
With congressional Republicans’ efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act on hold, a new issue brief from the Kaiser Family Foundation answers questions about the current state of the 2010 health law, zeroing in on the individual insurance marketplaces that the law established.
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