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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.
Medicare plays an integral role in end-of-life care, an issue that is emotionally-charged and easily politicized. About three-quarters of the 2.5 million Americans who die each year are ages 65 and older, and covered by Medicare at the time of their death, yet policy issues related to Medicare and end-of-life care are often poorly understood.
This brief examines the experiences of low-income adults in three states that have made varied Medicaid expansion decisions: Ohio, which adopted the ACA Medicaid expansion, Arkansas which implemented the Medicaid expansion through a “Private Option” waiver, and Missouri, which has not adopted the expansion. While Arkansas and Ohio implemented the expansion in different ways, participants in both states described how obtaining coverage improved their ability to access care, contributing to improvements in their ability to work and family relationships. In contrast, participants in Missouri remained uninsured limiting their ability to obtain needed care, creating significant stress and anxiety in their lives, and interfering with their ability to work and care for their families.
This brief provides profiles of twelve individuals living with HIV to offer an in-depth look at how the Affordable Care Act (ACA) has affected their healthcare and coverage. Participants live in California, Florida, Georgia, New York, and Texas and discuss their enrollment and coverage experience, including whether they got new coverage (in the Marketplace or Medicaid), how their HIV care has been affected, and the role of the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program.
New in-depth profiles of 12 people with HIV highlight how the Affordable Care Act’s coverage expansions impacted their access to coverage and care. While some experienced serious bumps along the way, those who gained coverage through Medicaid and the Marketplaces were largely able to meet both their HIV and non-HIV care needs.
Continuing an effort to explore Affordable Care Act (ACA) implementation in the states, the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Blue Shield of California Foundation examined ACA implementation in California (CA) at a Sacramento, Calif. briefing and panel discussion on May 28. A state official, experts and advocates discussed issues and challenges related to implementation of the law, and the practical impact of providing coverage to roughly 4.5 million Californians who have coverage via the state marketplace or the Medi-Cal expansion.
New HHS clarification on ACA contraceptive coverage requirement specifies that insurance plans must cover at no cost to women all of the 18 contraceptive methods approved by the FDA. If a provider recommends a specific option or product, plans must cover it at no cost as well.
In this May post for the journal Women's Health Issues, Alina Salganicoff, Usha Ranji and Laurie Sobel explore Medicaid's role in providing health coverage for women over the past 50 years and outline key issues going forward. The post is now available here.
Medicaid, the main health insurance program for low-income people and the single largest source of public coverage in the U.S., turns 50 this year.
The Medicaid program, signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson on July 30, 1965, will reach its 50th anniversary this year, a historic milestone. This report reflects on Medicaid’s accomplishments and challenges and considers the issues on the horizon that will influence the course of this major health coverage and financing program moving forward.
This slideshow explains key elements of the Medicare program, which now provides health coverage to 55 million people — including 46 million people age 65 and older and another 9 million younger adults with permanent disabilities.
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