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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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State Health Facts is a KFF project that provides free, up-to-date, and easy-to-use health data for all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and the United States. It offers data on specific types of health insurance coverage, including employer-sponsored, Medicaid, Medicare, as well as people who are uninsured by demographic characteristics, including age, race/ethnicity, work status, gender, and income. There are also data on health insurance status for a state's population overall and broken down by age, gender, and income.
This report examines the causes and contributors to medical debt, medical bankruptcy, and other difficulties with medical bills among people with insurance. Through in-depth interviews of nearly two-dozen people and quantitative analysis of national survey data, the authors of this report find that in-network and out-of-net-work cost sharing primarily contribute to medical debt among the insured.
This Visualizing Health Policy takes a look at recent trends in employer-sponsored insurance, including average premium increases for workers with family coverage, the average yearly cost of premiums for single and family coverage and how those costs have increased in the past decade, along with the prevalence of health promotion programs (such as wellness programs) offered by large firms. It also looks at differences in premium and worker contributions at firms with many lower-wage workers…
In some states, policymakers and stakeholders are considering adoption of the Basic Health Program (BHP) option permitted under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA). Federal regulations allow BHP implementation beginning in 2015. Through BHP, consumers with incomes at or below 200 percent of the federal poverty level (FPL) who would otherwise qualify for subsidized qualified health plans (QHPs) offered in health insurance marketplaces instead are offered state-contracting standard health plans that provide coverage…
The Affordable Care Act’s Medicaid expansion provides a significant opportunity to increase health coverage and improve access to care for individuals experiencing homelessness, who historically have had high uninsured rates and often have multiple, complex physical and mental health needs. On Monday, December 15, 2014, the Kaiser Family Foundation hosted a web briefing to examine the early impacts of the ACA’s Medicaid expansion on the homeless population, as well as opportunities and challenges looking forward. The…
This report examines the role of both Medicare and the Indian Health Service (IHS) in providing access to health care for about 650,000 American Indians and Alaska Natives who are age 65 and older or who have permanent disabilities. While Medicare provides important health care coverage for most in this group, its relatively high cost-sharing and gaps in benefits can be problematic for American Indians and Alaska Native Medicare beneficiaries who do not have additional…
The Affordable Care Act (ACA) requires most private health insurance plans to provide coverage for a broad range of preventive services, including most contraceptives for women. This policy was at the center of a Supreme Court case brought forward by for-profit corporations (Hobby Lobby and Conestoga) that successfully claimed that the contraceptive coverage requirement violated their religious rights. Last month, the Supreme Court agreed to hear yet another challenge (Zubik v Burwell) to the contraceptive…
As the U.S. Supreme Court gears up to hear a new round of legal challenges to the ACA’s contraceptive coverage requirement, a new Kaiser Family Foundation data note finds 10 percent of nonprofits with more than 1,000 employees have requested an "accommodation" to the health law's birth control requirement. Overall, 3 percent of nonprofits with 10 or more employees reported they have sought an accommodation, according to the analysis, which draws from responses to the Kaiser/Health…
This survey of Kentucky residents gauges their views on health care policy in the state, including their preferences for the future of the Medicaid expansion and the state-based health insurance marketplace, Kynect. Kentucky has received national attention as the only Southern state to fully embrace the Affordable Care Act, though the state elected a new governor in November 2015 who campaigned on rolling back the Medicaid expansion and ending Kynect.
Most Americans receive their health insurance through their own job or the job of a family member; an offer of coverage at work is an important determinant of the likelihood of having private health insurance. This analysis examines the percentage of nonelderly, full-time adult workers (age 18 through 64) in private firms who were offered health insurance at their current primary job and how that changed over the period from 1995 to 2005. The condition…
This chartpack highlights demographic data about African Americans, Hispanics and whites with Medicare to highlight potential implications for outreach efforts under the new Medicare drug benefit. The information is being used in a series of November 2005 briefings at the start of the first open-enrollment period for the new benefit. Chartpack (.pdf)
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