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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.
Several years ago Joanne Silberner from NPR offered some advice I liked. Joanne said that the secret to effective communication was to "have a killer anecdote and a killer number." Here is a killer number: 19.7. That's the average number of years between major attempts at health reform since Harry Truman made health reform a top priority and his plan was branded a socialist plot and soundly defeated in 1950. The chart below chronicles the…
This survey by NPR and researchers at the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Harvard School of Public Health highlights the public’s attitudes and experiences with the American health care delivery system. The new survey sheds light on Americans’ experiences with issues more typically discussed by health policy experts – including electronic medical records, coordination of care and comparative effectiveness – all of which have become serious components of reform plans and some of which have…
The April Kaiser Health Tracking Poll finds that six in ten Americans continues to say that they or a member of their household have delayed or skipped health care in the past year. A solid majority of the public believes health care reform is more important than ever because of current economic problems. The country’s overall economic problems have not dampened their interest in pursuing health care reform: a solid majority of the public (59%)…
This document contains the chartpack from the April Health Tracking Poll. The survey was designed and analyzed by public opinion researchers at the Kaiser Family Foundation and was conducted April 2 through April 8, 2009, among a nationally representative random sample of 1,203 adults ages 18 and older. Telephone interviews conducted by landline (902) and cell phone (301, including 98 who had no landline telephone) were carried out in English and Spanish. The margin of…
This document contains the key findings from the April Health Tracking Poll. The survey was designed and analyzed by public opinion researchers at the Kaiser Family Foundation and was conducted April 2 through April 8, 2009, among a nationally representative random sample of 1,203 adults ages 18 and older. Telephone interviews conducted by landline (902) and cell phone (301, including 98 who had no landline telephone) were carried out in English and Spanish. The margin…
This document contains the toplines from the April Health Tracking Poll. The survey was designed and analyzed by public opinion researchers at the Kaiser Family Foundation and was conducted April 2 through April 8, 2009, among a nationally representative random sample of 1,203 adults ages 18 and older. Telephone interviews conducted by landline (902) and cell phone (301, including 98 who had no landline telephone) were carried out in English and Spanish. The margin of…
The Kaiser Family Foundation and the National Conference of State Legislatures co-sponsored a webinar, or interactive Web-based seminar, that examined key health policy aspects of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) of 2009. The webinar for state legislative health chairs provided an overview of the stimulus law with a focus on provisions dealing with Medicaid, COBRA and health information technology. Webinar
This updated fact sheet shows variations across states and racial and ethnic groups for six key health and health care indicators. It provides a quick glance at disparities in rates of infant mortality and diabetes-related mortality and AIDS cases in all 50 states and the District of Columbia, as well as similar breakdowns showing the percentage of each group in each state that is uninsured, enrolled in Medicaid, and living in poverty. Fact Sheet (.pdf)
This brief, the first in a series, examines the new federal "performance bonus" available to states that do an especially good job of signing up eligible children for Medicaid. The bonus, created by a provision in the Children's Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act of 2009, is designed to help states cover the added costs that result when states are very successful in enrolling eligible children in Medicaid above target levels specified in the law. It…
This series of implementation briefs called “CHIP Tips” examines new opportunities for covering children following the reauthorization and expansion of CHIP in February 2009. Together Medicaid and CHIP provide coverage for more than one in four children in the U.S., yet many others remain eligible but uninsured. The series, which explores a range of topics, is jointly produced by the Kaiser Family Foundation’s Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured and the Center for Children and…
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