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KFF’s policy research provides facts and analysis on a wide range of policy issues and public programs.
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.
KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the organization’s core operating programs.
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 this column for the JAMA Health Forum, Larry Levitt examines the implications of lowering Medicare’s age of eligibility, which is emerging as a potential pathway toward Medicare-for-all or a public option among single-payer advocates. He explores the implications for costs, industry, people and broader reform efforts.
As 2022 kicks off, a number of issues are at play that could affect coverage and financing under Medicaid. This issue brief examines key issues to watch in Medicaid in the year ahead.
To better understand how states are preparing for Medicaid work requirements, states were asked to discuss anticipated challenges to implementing work requirements by the end of 2026, including related system changes and data matching.
This report examines affiliations between Catholic and non-Catholic health care providers and their impact on the availability of reproductive health services in communities.
This fact sheet examines how the recent recession drove up Medicaid enrollment as millions of Americans lost jobs and income, and how that increase in enrollment has been the primary cause of the increase in overall Medicaid spending. Fact Sheet (.pdf)
Women's Health Policy Download a printable .pdf of Health Care and the 2004 Elections: Women's Health Policy. IssueBackgroundReproductive HealthImproving Insurance Coverage and Affordability of CareBalancing Work and Family Health Care NeedsLong-Term CareClinical ResearchAssessing Candidate Positions Issue Health care is a major issue for women. Their greater health needs, longer lifespans, lower incomes, roles in their family’s health as mothers and caregivers, and reproductive health needs make their relationship with the health care system complex. Historically,…
Conservatives are out of sorts these days about the direction in which health care is headed. They think the new health reform law expands the role of government too much and spends too much at a time when they believe deficit reduction should be a higher priority. The claims about death panels and a government takeover of the health system aside, these are principled positions for conservatives to take – they are supposed to be…
This survey conducted jointly by NPR and public opinion researchers at the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Harvard School of Public Health examines how the public views different approaches for expanding health coverage, including provisions that would require individuals to purchase insurance or parents to obtain coverage for their children. The survey looks at whether or not the public supports such provisions, the major reasons behind their views, and how opinions differ among Democrats, Republicans…
The Alliance for Health Reform and The Commonwealth Fund co-sponsored this briefing to explore the health reform proposals being considered which may impose responsibilities on both individuals and employers to have and help pay for coverage and whether they will be able to pay the amounts above the subsidies. Questions addressed include:If Congress exempts people from the coverage requirement or significantly reduces the penalties for noncompliance, will enough healthy individuals purchase new coverage to adequately…
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