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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.
In recent weeks, the possible overturning of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) in court and the upcoming election have focused attention on the issue of protections for people with pre-existing conditions. While the focus has been on the ACA’s private insurance protections, Medicaid also plays a significant role in covering people with pre-existing conditions.
The COVID-19 pandemic has magnified pre-existing health disparities for justice-involved populations, with coronavirus infection rates among incarcerated populations higher than overall infection rates in nearly all states. Justice-involved individuals are disproportionately low-income and often have complex and/or chronic conditions, including behavioral health needs. Although the statutory inmate exclusion policy prohibits Medicaid from covering services provided during incarceration (except for inpatient services), states may take other steps to leverage Medicaid to improve continuity of care for…
Starting April 1, states have a new option to extend Medicaid postpartum coverage from 60 days to 12 months without having to seek a waiver.
This brief provides an overview of the major health-related COVID-19 federal emergency declarations that have been made since early on in the pandemic, summarizes the flexibilities triggered by each, and identifies the implications for their ending, related to coverage, costs, and payment for COVID-19 testing, treatments, and vaccines; Medicaid coverage and federal match rates; telehealth; access to medical countermeasures through FDA emergency use authorization (EUA); and other Medicaid, Medicare and private health insurance flexibilities.
When the federal government ends COVID-19 emergency declarations that were declared in the early days of the pandemic, it will bring to a close several changes that were enacted temporarily to enable the U.S. health care system to better deal with the crisis. A new KFF resource details a number of those flexibilities and lays out what it will mean for people, providers and federal health programs when they go away. One of the key…
Findings from administrative data suggest that the decline in enrollment among employer-sponsored insurance was far less than overall declines in employment as of September, and that many who did lose their job-based coverage likely found a safety net in coverage through Medicaid or the ACA marketplaces.
In 2002, the state of Washington eliminated state-funded Medicaid look-alike coverage for certain immigrant families. These families then became eligible for more limited coverage in the state's Basic Health program. This report details the process of this transition and the outcomes for coverage and access for these individuals. Research Brief (.pdf)
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This report documents the findings of a study examining access to health insurance coverage in the individual market for people with health problems. Seven hypothetical consumers with varying health conditions were defined and insurers and HMOs in eight different markets around the country were asked to consider them as though they were real consumers applying for coverage. Renewed debate over proposals to expand coverage for the uninsured using tax credits for the purchase of individual…
This primer, prepared by Gary Claxton of the Institute for Health Care Research and Policy at Georgetown University, examines the structure and operation of private health insurance including the types of organizations that provide it, how managed care is delivered, and how risk pools work and describes how private health insurance coverage is regulated under state and federal laws. The primer explains how the current nature of private insurance relates to key issues facing federal…
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